Sky and Ground
by antepathy
Summary: Slashy robot slashiness. An angsty little miniseries of my OTP: Barricade/Skywarp. Bayverse slightly AU.
1. Endearment

_A/N: so I've been writing this angsty little miniseries on my LJ and the pairing's rather taken off, especially Barricade/Skywarp. It started out of guilt: I'd written a request for some pretty violent non-con on Barricade, wrote it, and then felt AWFUL about it. :( So, I decided I would write him happy!sex to clear my conscience. And then more. And then, some more. And then it gets kinda angsty. And the rest, as they say, is history. I'm tickled pink that others are loving and writing my OTP, and I figured, what the hell, maybe readers who like theirs will like mine, too. Since I kinda started it. ^__^ (I'm Ground Zero for a pairing infection, yay!!) _

_Fanon paints Barricade as either a rapist or the victim of repeated serial rape aboard the Nemesis. Neither is happy-making, though I do allude to both, so the fanon-nazis don't think I'm ign'int. _

Barricade frowned over the datapad, hitting Starscream's recharge door-chime for the third time. He knew he was in there. Probably avoiding him. Probably knew exactly what Barricade wanted to talk to him about—the maddening incompleteness of his latest reports. Just location coordinates and munitions expenditures, and occasionally a casualty list. Missing the whole story part of the story. And THAT was the part the CIO needed. The rest was…Supply's problem. And Repair Bay.

He swore. Second in Command trying to avoid work and now him? Stupid mistake. Barricade had the overrides for every lock on the Nemesis. He punched in the code, impatiently and stepped through the door the instant it spiralled open.

Oh.

Well.

That explained why Starscream hadn't answered his door. He was…otherwise occupied. As in, flat on his berth, wrists pinned by another jet straddling him. Starscream's hips were thrusting into the other mech's. This other jet's armor was matte-black, his wings sweeping down from his shoulders. The hands, though, were identical to Starscream's. And the face…similar enough to be twins. Another oh. One of Starscream's Trine.

Doing, apparently, what Trinemates do for a reunion.

"Come on," the black jet was goading. "All you got for me? After all this time?" He grinned triumphantly down at Starscream, readjusting his grip on his Trinemate's wrists as Starscream struggled to free his hands. His hips continued to thrust upward, at an almost frantic pace.

"If you would…stop pulling away…," the bronze jet gasped. His chain guns rang along the metal table of the berth as he tried to free himself. Apparently, Barricade surmised, NOT to fight back, but to hold the other Seeker still long enough to pound the hell out of him.

"Pulling away? Not me. Here. I'll prove it." The black jet locked down the joints of his lower body, completely immobilizing his lower frame. Starscream's thrusts hit him with force enough to rattle his bracing knees. He must have been pulling away before. Suddenly the black jet gave three sharp, short pants and then a shudder that moved his whole body. Almost immediately, Starscream cried out, arching his hips into one last thrust into the other jet's valve.

The datapad fell from Barricade's numb fingers, clattering loudly on the floor.

Two pairs of red optics whirled to him.

He bent down, quickly. "Uhh, I'll just…I mean. Didn't mean to….Uhhh, nice meeting you?" What the fuck was he even saying? The only thought in his cortex—the only conscious thought swirling in the rising fog of pure lust that the spectacle had awakened in there, was to get away.

Starscream freed his arm from his Trinemate's grasp, and coded the door. Barricade heard it lock behind him. No way he could hit the overrides in time. He rose to his feet, lamely clutching the datapad, as if it offered any protection at all.

"Barricade," Starscream said, his voice neutral. "Come here." Barricade heard the soft, almost inaudible hum of a subvoc connection: the two were talking about him. This did not fill him with good feelings. He inched forward, the datapad held in front of him like a shield. "What did you see?"

"See? Me? Nothing. I didn't see anything. I just came to get, uhhh, some detail in these reports and…I just got here." Another hum of subvoc. He quivered as Starscream's long hand curled around his shoulder.

"Barricade. You did not just get here, did you? And how did you get in?" Starscream snatched the datapad from him.

"Overrides," he said, feeling suddenly sheepish. "But I didn't mean to interrupt, you know, your…uh…your reunion. Or anything."

"You did interrupt, though," the black jet cut in.

"Yeah, well, I'm really sorry. Look I can come back later for these reports. It's really not a big deal."

"It is a big deal," the black jet said. "No one interrupts us."

Barricade froze, feeling acutely the size and armament difference. Frag it, he didn't even have a range weapon. And they both had guns, missile launchers and talons. Against his…tirespokes. Oh frag. He was doomed. He braced himself. At least he wouldn't go down without a fight.

"No one interrupts us," Starscream corrected, pulling himself up onto an elbow, gasping as the move disconnected his spike from his Trinemate's valve, "Without paying a penalty."

Barricade flexed his talons, waiting. Above him, the black one started…laughing?

"Skywarp," Starscream said with a hint of impatience, "you are ruining the effect."

"I'm sorry: he just looks so scared."

"He should look scared. We have a lot to catch up on. And," the bronze jet looked up at Skywarp, considering, "how long has it been since we shared a grounder?"

Shared? Fuck fighting. Barricade bolted to the door, his talons slipping against the keypad in alarm as he tried to enter the override code. A pair of hands descended on his shoulders. He dropped low, spinning on his heels and bolted—almost into a pair of bronze legs. He skidded to a halt. The two jets surrounded him, his eyes even with their pelvic plating. Which made him really worried. He was small: he was weak, and other mechs sometimes decided that that combination meant…well, very bad things for his self esteem. What little he had. The last thing he needed was forced humiliation from a jet, much less two of them.

He braced himself, throwing out his spoke weapon. "I'd rather fucking die!" he cried out, desperately.

Skywarp straightened up, breaking his ominous pose. "Is he okay?"

Starscream shook his headan."He has always been a little paranoid. Not undeservedly so. But this time," and the jet rushed in, scooping Barricade off his feet before the smaller mech could strike, "very undeservedly so." He held Barricade still, and approached Skywarp, who ran his long cool talons down Barricade's central dorsal line, the thin points of the digits teasing armor plating. Barricade shivered at the unexpected sensation. No, this was just a set up.

The talons curled around his throat, probing under his grille. A moan escaped his mouth. He felt his head tilting back, tilting his chest up into those probing fingers.

"I don't think he gets a lot of this sort of attention."

"More new ground for us, then." He felt a hand hard on the back of his helm, and gritted his eyes closed, grinding his teeth together. Instead of a hard spike, he felt the warm, soft pressure of a glossa against his labial plating. His eyes fluttered open. Starscream, eyes demurely closed, kissing him. Kissing him? His mouth opened, and he shivered again at the new sensation of a glossa exploring his mouth, teasing his own. Hesitantly, he probed the jet's mouth, hearing an answering growl in his throat. Meanwhile the other mech's hands continued their exploration of his chassis, his legs, the sensitive joins under his arms. His spokes retracted as Skywarp's talons brushed Barricade's wrists. He thought of those hands holding Starscream's down, and shuddered. But not out of fear this time.

This, he knew, was not going to last. But…but maybe he could enjoy it while it did?

He raised his hands, exploring shyly Starscream's face and jaw, his own small talons teasing out ventilation ducts on the underside of the jet's jaw that had Starscream purr with pleasure. Maybe…maybe if he kept this up they wouldn't turn to the inevitable nasty.

He yelped in the jet's mouth, feeling Skywarp's glossa on his audio. "You are deliciously innocent, aren't you?" the jet murmured. He tugged Starscream's arm and Barricade felt himself carried over to the berth. He…had no idea what to expect. Half of him expected the usual to ensue, but half…just didn't know, but trembled on the very verges of hope.

He felt a hand on his armor, unfastening his interface hatch. The holder changed—he was leaned back against Skywarp, feeling the bump of a cockpit against his central dorsal line. His spike stung as the lubricant hit the open air. He hissed at the slight pain, and the mortification of the image he was giving them. He cringed when he heard Starscream laugh, and gritted his eyes for the inevitable insult.

He almost bolted out of Skywarp's grasp when he felt a warm mouth close over his spike. Starscream looked up at him, his labial plating parted around the spike, his warm, sinuous glossa teasing the spike's sensory nodes, licking at the lubricant as though this were an erotic thing. Barricade bit down on a groan. It felt…unbelievably good. But…Starscream was doing this willingly?

"Stop!" he gasped. "Please."

"Why?" Skywarp murmured in his ear. "We want to watch you get off. Relax. Starscream is very, very good at this."

Primus he was. Not that Barricade had a lot to compare it to. But he felt himself thrashing in Skywarp's arms as an overload tore through his body, feeling as if it were yanking his very spark through his sensor net. Starscream gave one final lick to the spike, still extended, and crept up his Trinemate's body to kiss Skywarp. For a long moment, Barricade saw nothing but jet chassis on all sides.

Skywarp bent down over his audio again, "Primus you taste good," he murmured. Barricade shuddered, feeling lubricant leak at his spike again. Already. He cringed as Skywarp acknowledged that with a soft laugh. "And so randy, too. My turn." Skywarp handed him off to Starscream, who pulled him into another kiss.

"Have you figured out we're not going to hurt you yet, Barricade?" the jet murmured.

"But…but why?"

Another soft laugh. "You are here. Skywarp thinks you're hot. And," the jet leaned forward to nip his audio finials. "You so desperately, desperately need it."

None of this was making any sense at all, but Barricade decided sometimes sense sucked. He felt Skywarp's weight on his back, long fingers teasing his arm tires. "How do you want it, Barricade?" the mech's voice was surprisingly deep, and tickled Barricade's audio.

"Want…it?" He couldn't be asking what Barricade thought he was asking.

"Do you want valve or spike."

Oh. Oh Primus. He blinked, as stunned as if Skywarp had just clocked him over the head. For a long moment, he said nothing. He felt Starscream move beneath him, shifting Barricade's weight lower.

"He is unable to decide, Skywarp. Which means, well, since he is in the middle…."

Barricade gasped as Starscream squirmed his hips underneath him, and he felt his spike plunge into the jet's valve. A moment later, he cried out as Skywarp slowly pushed his spike into the smaller mech's valve. He pushed up suddenly against the sensation, clonking his head on the jet's chest. Another round of laughter.

"Primus, he's just precious, isn't he?" Skywarp breathed. He pushed experimentally into Barricade's valve, rocking him, in turn, in Starscream. Oh this was too much.

Skywarp pushed a little faster, a little harder. Barricade tried to say something; nothing but incoherent syllables poured from his vocalizer.

"Either his vocalizer is on the fritz or he's enjoying this."

"He is enjoying it," Starscream gasped, his own breath coming a little raggedly.

Barricade felt four hands trace his body, one pair flirting with his thigh armor, another teasing his arms and back. He felt Skywarp's speech rumble through his chest against Barricade's back. "I think he's going to take us with him."

"Soon," Starscream said, his eyes drooping closed, mouth slightly parted, giving himself over to the sensation.

An overload of such intensity that Barricade's sensor net blanked for a klik tore through him as both of his interface systems fired off at the same time. He screamed—he remembered screaming—remembered Skywarp's hand covering his mouth, Skywarp's mouth hot on his audio and throat—remembered the two of them overloading afterwards, almost spiralling him into another one—the grasping rush of Starscream's valve seizing on his spike, Skywarp's spike shooting transfluid into his valve.

He lay there, limp, sprawled on Starscream's chest, Skywarp's hand still over his mouth. Oh, if he could die right now, he'd be okay with that.

After a long moment, Skywarp stirred. "Going to pull out now, okay, grounder?" He moaned something like assent, and felt Skywarp withdraw, gently. Primus, they were treating him like a doll. Like he'd break. And…he did NOT want to complain. He raised himself on his elbows. "Should move, too, huh?"

"It depends, Barricade. Are you finished with me?" Starscream squeezed his valve around the still extended spike. This is not happening. Oh Primus this cannot be happening. But please…please…let it be happening?

"He's done with you," Skywarp said. "Simply because I want him." Oh. A shudder of pure desire wracked Barricade's body. Just at the words. Someone WANTED him. Regretfully, he let himself be pulled away from Starscream. Skywarp settled him on the berth. "Don't mind if I do all the work, do you? You are going to need to conserve your energy, grounder." Another shudder of pure anticipatory desire ran through Barricade's sensornet, that compounded as the black jet straddled his hips, settling himself on Barricade's spike. Barricade stroked the larger mech's thighs, only to find his wrists slammed against the berth.

"Do not be alarmed, Barricade. Skywarp merely likes to hold his partners down." Barricade's mind flashed back to the image of Skywarp pinning Starscream's wrists the same way. He tried to sigh himself relaxed.

Relaxation was kind of hard when another mech was willingly riding your spike. He couldn't tear his eyes off the spectacle of the matte-black Seeker, eyes closed, head tilted upward, shifting his hips over Barricade. Not up and down, but slightly forward and back, so that his spike shifted pressure against the valve.

He felt cool fingers brush his grille. "If you wish to arouse him," Starscream said, settling himself behind Barricade's head, watching the same show Barricade was…with almost the same reaction, "He likes it when you struggle. A little bit."

Barricade twisted one wrist experimentally in Skywarp's grasp, and then the other. "Ha!" Skywarp muttered. "Can't escape, can you? My little spike. Mine."

"He also likes to talk…unromantically," Starscream added, slightly apologetically. It was fine with Barricade. It was turning him on. No one had ever called him their little spike before. He struggled a bit harder, twisting his chassis on the berth.

Skywarp bent over him, eyes ablaze. "MY spike. Mine." His grip tightened on Barricade's wrists, almost hard enough to hurt. Even that, though, aroused Barricade. He felt an overload rushing at him. Too soon. The jet would be disappointed. He gritted his denta, determined to hold it off. His body thrashed now, under the impossibly coaxing motion of the Seeker on his spike, and his struggle to keep himself together.

Skywarp banged his wrists against the berth. "Give it to me!" he snarled, startling Barricade into losing control. With another cry, he overloaded his spike into the Seeker's valve. Skywarp arched up, panting hard. Barricade felt the Seeker's valve spasm against his spike in his own overload.

Skywarp collapsed down on top of him, panting, murmuring. "Good spike. My good little spike. Good little Barricade, yes…." He dropped to one side, careful not to crush Barricade, releasing his grip on the smaller mech's wrists. Sensation rushed back into them. He quivered. This was all just…too much.

"Do you like him?" Starscream asked, stroking his Trinemate's head.

"Very much." Skywarp leaned over, and Barricade felt the Seeker part his mouth with his own. Not as gently as Starscream—more demanding. He moaned, softly. A sour thought came to him, as Skywarp continued to kiss him. It was a bad, as in astronomically bad, idea to have Starscream jealous. He turned his head away, with regret, breaking the kiss.

"Hurt you, little spike?" Skywarp said, only half-teasing.

"Starscream. Jealous," was all he managed to say. The 'little spike' endearment flared his sensornet again.

"What?" The bronze jet heard his name.

"He thinks you're going to get jealous if I keep paying attention to him instead of you." The way he said it made it sound like a joke.

Starscream knelt behind Barricade's head. "Barricade, Trines do not get jealous. Not for this sort of thing." He bent lower. "If I am upset at anything it is that I did not consider you before as an interface partner." He settled his legs closer. "Now, my turn: Spike or valve, Barricade. I want to see what you can do." He winked.

"My vote," Skywarp said, "Is valve. But I don't think our little spike is quite recovered yet." He preened. "I took a lot out of him."

Starscream flopped back. "It is up to him."

Barricade struggled to his knees. Skywarp was right: he wasn't ready to go again. But he remembered Starscream's valve from before. And there were ways he could buy time. He'd just never done them…voluntarily before. He teased the jet's exposed spike with the back of one hand, gratified when it leaked a little lubricant. He rubbed it again, more openly. Starscream sighed, settling himself back, his head pillowed in his arms. Barricade straddled one of the jet's thighs, reaching over to the valve, leaking his own and Skywarp's fluids. A shiver ran through him: he hadn't realized at the time—too swept up in everything else—he'd been spiking the Seeker through his own Trinemate's overload. The thought sent a dark thrill through him. He tasted it. Above him, Starscream shuddered, his breath hitching. Barricade licked the outer rim of the valve, a hesitant grin flashing on his face as the jet began a series of tremors, his thighs nearly vibrating from the tension. He kept his hand slow and gentle on the spike, lubricant spilling over his talons. His own spike signalled its readiness to extend. Not yet. Not…yet. He gathered the excess lubricant with his other hand, glossing it thickly across his fingers, and carefully inserted one long talon into the valve.

The jet gasped. He felt the valve clench around his finger. He began working it slowly in the jet, whose vibrations increased. He risked another talon, pushing at the edges of the valve. Starscream moaned openly, one hand coming down to clutch at the air near Barricade's head.

Barricade shifted, working his fingers into the valve in the same rhythm his other hand worked the jet's spike.

"Oh!" Starscream said, sounding half surprised. "Oh!" And then he half-sat up, an involuntary motor reflex, crying out as his systems overloaded. Silver fluid shot from his spike, and a thin trickle of bluish fluid seeped from his valve.

Skywarp bent over, teasing the end of his Trinemate's spike with his glossa. Starscream quivered. "Spike him now, Barricade."

"No," the bronze jet said, panting. "Better idea." He rose up, shoving a surprised Skywarp flat on his back. "Barricade, shall we?" He pinned Skywarp down with one arm across his Trinemate's chest, licking his spike. Barricade shuddered, remembering the feel of that glossa on his own spike. "Skywarp," Starscream suggested, pausing, "likes to take your spike, doesn't he?"

It was awkward, thrusting his spike into the Seeker's valve while his Trinemate worked on his spike with his eager, agile mouth. Starscream's shoulder curved around his hips, encouraging him, but also pinning him against Skywarp, guiding his tempo. Skywarp thrashed, cursing softly, his heat sinks drowning out most of the words, until his hips bucked off the berth, and Barricade felt the valve pulling, goading, an overload out of his spike at the same time Starscream made a soft murmur and swallow in his throat.

Barricade collapsed against the two of them, exhausted. Starscream's arm was around his waist, his head under Barricade's ribs, Skywarp a panting cushion underneath them. Skywarp sat up onto his elbows, pulling Barricade into a fierce kiss. "So good, my little spike," he murmured.

They lay tangled together. Eventually, Starscream ducked his head out from under Barricade's arm. "You wished to discuss intelligence reports with me, yes?" He saw why the topic came back up. Starscream had rolled off onto the lumpy datapad.

"Did I?" Barricade said, only vaguely remembering. He managed a shrug. "Unimportant. My cue to leave, though." He suspected they wanted to do some more…reuniting without the third party. Skywarp shifted to let him get up. He borrowed some of Starscream's cleansing rags to wipe down his armor, quickly. Starscream handed him the datapad, but didn't release his grip.

"Barricade. Skywarp is…extremely protective," he said, glancing over at where his larger Trinemate draped, half-recharging, on the berth. "If anyone bothers you…that way, please let us know."

Barricade felt shame-driven heat flush his face. "I can take care of myself," he said, stiffly.

"Not the point," Skywarp said, rolling to the edge of the berth, pulling Barricade against him, lazily. "MY little spike." He pulled Barricade into a gentle kiss, saying, as he broke it, "But Starscream can borrow you."


	2. Productively Disruptive Meeting

_A/N: So I get the dubious honor of sitting in these often-times three-hour-long committee and senate meetings. Oy. And thus was born: BORING MEETING ROBOT PORN! _

Starscream slumped in his seat, his broad shoulders pressing against the hard material, trying his best to look sullen and dejected, fighting an immortal combat with the smirk that was twitching across his facial plating. Soundwave was pontificating next to him, at the head of the table, the pompous aft. Megatron had left him temporarily in charge of the Nemesis and Soundwave was…making a very big deal out of it. A very big, very boring, very wordy deal. Begging Starscream to do anything about it.

Starscream did nothing: the picture of obedience. His Trinemate, however….

*****

Skywarp curled his arms over the back of the chair, rubbing his cheek plates against the audio of a very surprised Barricade, who squirmed, Skywarp thought, adorably. He didn't know quite what it was, but he found the little grounders completely irresistible. Especially this one. So easily freaked out. And so…enjoyable.

The other mechs to either side struggled to pay attention to Soundwave but… how could you not look? A big Seeker, running his barbed talons over the CIO's chassis, all while Barricade struggled to show no reaction? Entertainment of a variety of flavors.

"You are," Skywarp breathed, "so hot. I want to take you right here."

Barricade's optics flared, slightly alarmed. Here? In front of everyone? There was not a doubt in his processor that Skywarp would do it, too. Just throw him on the table, pin his wrists down, and take him. Oooooh, get that image out of your cortex! Meeting. Right. Meeting. Pay attention. Pay no attention to those black plated talons teasing under your grille, that outventing in your throat. "I-I can't," he managed.

"I know," Skywarp said, his voice vibrating somewhere below Barricade's audio. Somwhere, like his spike. "You are SO well-behaved. But I want to." He licked the smaller mech's audio, sliding his hands over Barricade's thigh armor. Barricade in-vented, hard, his eyes flicking closed.

"Barricade," Soundwave snapped. "Is that truly necessary? You are disrupting my meeting."

Barricade bolted upright. "Sorry. Uh…I'm sorry. I just…what were we talking about?" A few snickers from the assembled 'cons, but more than a few envious glances.

"We were discussing plans to improve operational efficiency." Barricade snatched at his datapad, searching for the relevant slide.

"We can always improve morale," Skywarp said, cattily, his talons teasing Barricade's inner thigh's exposed cabling. "I have a few ideas." He licked Barricade's audio.

"Skywarp, with all due respect, you are not a part of this meeting."

"Soundwave," Skywarp drawled, "With no respect at all, I have diplomatic access to any and all operations aboard the Nemesis. Including this meeting." He ducked his head to tickle Barricade's neck cabling. Soundwave stared, openmouthed at his audacity, as Barricade shivered, dropping his head back against Skywarp's shoulder.

"Ahem," Soundwave finally managed. "Well. Could you at least stop molesting my CIO?"

"Could I? Yes. Do I want to? No. Does HE want me to?" He murmured in Barricade's audio, loud enough to be overheard: "What do you think, little spike? You want me to stop?" The talons raked a little harder at the thigh cabling, just at the threshold of pain but not over it. Barricade felt his spike lubricate.

"No?" he squeaked. Oh Primus no. The last thing he wanted was for Skywarp to stop. Still. Everyone was watching. He tried not to think of the spectacle he was providing for them, squirming and so-obviously aroused. Not that he thought any of them would do a better job resisting Skywarp's advances. Not that he wanted Skywarp to try with someone else. He forced himself up, bending over his datapad. "I—uhh, regarding our operational efficiency, I think we…ohh!!" Skywarp had dropped his head between Barricade's shoudlers, his glossa teasing at the wing fairings behind his neck. "We are…," he struggled onward, gamely, "operating at…acceptable efficiency rates…." His voice trailed off. Skywarp's hands teased at his spike cover.

"Skywarp!" Soundwave snapped. "this is becoming disruptive. Please remove your hands and…anything else, from my CIO."

Skywarp frowned, putting on a show of surrender. "See? Not even touching him." He raised his hands up, innocently.

"Good." Soundwave gave a warning glare to Skywarp, then Barricade. "now, if we can continue our examination of the third objective—"

"Nnnngggguuuhh!!" Barricade cried out. He looked down, panicked. Something was teasing at his valve cover. A long bronzy toe. He looked across the table. Starscream smirked at him, raising one snide eyebrow, turning showily to pay attention to Soundwave. He continued to tease Barricade with his extended foot.

"Barricade, is there a problem?" Soundwave was losing his infinite patience, and fast.

"No," Barricade squirmed further upright, trying to remove himself from the range of Starscream's toes. "No—no problem."

"I hope not. These interruptions are becoming…interrupting." Soundwave's eyes glazed over as Barricade groaned writhing in his chair. The jet's toe was working at manually retracting the valve cover. Who the hell had this much dexterity in their feet?

"I'm sorry! Sorry!" He gritted his denta over a gasp as Starscream successfully dislodged his valve cover. He pushed away. Whose decision had it been to bolt the fragging chairs to the deck? He half-stood, pressing against the back of the chair, trying desperately to pull himself out of the range of Starscream's probing toes. Brawl, sitting next to him, was openly staring.

Starscream himself was the picture of innocence, frowning sternly at Barricade. "This meeting is of vital importance, Barricade," he chastised, "Soundwave is attempting to disseminate some very important information." All the while, he wiggled his toes menacingly between Barricade's thighs. Barricade's capacitor revved, half from desire, half from embarrassment. He was so turned on but…everyone was staring at him.

Brawl leaned over, whispering, staring at the wiggling toes. "Are you spiking the Seekers, Barricade?" he sounded surprised.

He froze. Sure, their estimation of him would shoot up—Barricade actually spiking anyone, much less the two of them—but theirs would sink. Poor taste. Not really his decision to make since he stood to lose nothing and they did.

"He is," Skywarp purred behind him. "He's fantastic. Don't you think, Starscream?"

"I do not know. He wore me into recharge. And then I awoke and had to prepare for this fascinatingly elucidating meeting." He turned wide, innocent optics to Soundwave. "To which we should pay our keenest attention," he finished, primly.

Several mechs were staring openmouthed at Barricade. "Yes, well, thank you, Starscream," Soundwave paused, as if stunned that those last three words came out of his vocalizer. Ever. "Now, the third objective?"

Barricade leaned forward, straddling the chair, bracing himself out of range of the bronze toes, resting his hands flat on the surface of the table. "Third objective, right. Crisis response efficiency," he read off his datapad. "Uhhhh," he risked a quick look down between his legs. Starscream wiggled his toes invitingly, as if to say, 'hi!'. "We have a quarter cycle recall for on-duty intel. Signals intelligence is a problem: not capture but analysis. Analysis is already at or near maximum capacity. There will be a lag in sig int analysis of approximately a cycle and as a result—OOOF!" A hand pushed down at his shoulder, another stroking his side greedily.

"Primus," Skywarp growled in his audio, "You are so hot when you talk technical." Barricade felt the Seeker's chassis hard on his back—the swell of the cockpit, the falling angles of the armor plates. He felt one of Skywarp's thighs against the back of his legs, pushing him forward, splatted onto the table. The one hand pinned his shoulders down, while the other groped over his legs for his spike cover.

"Help?" he said, weakly, reaching one hand out to Starscream.

"I think you are managing adequately on your own, Barricade," Starscream said. "Skywarp is merely commenting on the depth of your expertise of your field."

Barricade appealed to Bombshock, seated right across the table. The tank shook his head. "I've got money on which of you is louder in overload."

"Mechs!" Soundwave yelled, flailing his arms, his intercept wings fluttering. "Your attention! We are trying to have a productive meeting here!"

"You are trying," Brawl snickered, snatching his datapad away as Skywarp climbed up onto the table on top of Barricade.

Barricade found himself flipped around, crashing hard upon the table. Datapads and input rods went flying at the impact. Skwarp caught both of his wrists in one hand and held them up over his head, giving Barricade an eyeful of his inner elbow servos as he bent lower and lower down Barricade's twisting body.

"You do know," Starscream said, pointedly, eyes solidly on his datapad, "how he enjoys it when you struggle." Well, he couldn't help it. He couldn't let himself be pounced on in front of everyone and not at least put up some kind of fight.

"Come on!" he yelled, "Please! This isn't funny! This is really—oh! Oh my Priiiiiiiii—!!" He felt Skywarp's mouth settle, warm and wet and eager, over his lubricated spike. Here. In front of everyone. The writhing stopped, replaced by small, sharp shudders in time with Skywarp's glossa, teasing at the nodes of Barricade's spike. Barricade gasped, barely daring to move. He tried to close his eyes, but they seemed glued on the large dark-armored Seeker's head, the eyes half-lidded in contentment. He was…Skywarp was enjoying this. Skywarp caught his optic and winked. Barricade cried out as a spasm rippled through his frame and he overloaded into the jet's mouth. He cringed, waiting, half fearfully for what came next. The Seeker couldn't have intended this to go that far—didn't he know what mechs thought of someone who sucked a spike to overload?

He didn't think they even had an insult for someone who would suck a spike in front of the entire Decepticon leadership.

Skywarp gave the spike a few extra licks, swallowing delicately. Barricade's spike had not retracted, he noticed as Skywarp finally released it from his mouth. Skywarp grinned at him. "My good little spike," he growled, and lunged forward to kiss Barricade, his elbow banging into Barricade's pinned shoulder. "Still want you," he said, breaking the kiss, and straddling Barricade's hips, sinking himself onto the still extended spike. He still pinned Barricade's wrists with one arm, the other travelling down the smaller mech's torso. He looked up at Soundwave, coolly. "Are we onto the fourth objective yet?" he asked, his thighs sliding over Barricade's armor as he began working himself against the spike inside him.

Soundwave gaped, torn between outrage and…well, who knows what else with Soundwave. Speechless, watching the black jet please himself on Barricade's spike. Skywarp's ventilation came in loud, ragged bursts, thrusting through his air vents onto Barricade's legs. Barricade twisted, causing Skywarp's grip to tighten on his wrists. "No way, little spike," Skywarp said. "Going to give me what I want." His body rose and fell against Barricade's.

"Oh!" the Seeker burst out, suddenly. He thrust forward on Barricade's chassis three or four times. Barricade's spike spun him into a sympathetic overload. He buried his cry in Skywarp's exposed arm cables. His optics blurred from the intensity, his whole sensornet quivering, feeling every micron of Skywarp's clutching, overloading valve against him, feeling the smooth warm slide of his transfluid against his spike. Skywarp smiled, sated, down at him. "Primus, I love your spike," he said.

Beside him, Bombshock held out his hand for money. Soundwave began howling, something about disruptions and the brig and diplomatic immunity be damned and he was going to tell all of this to Megatron.

Starscream silenced him with one raised hand. "Soundwave, I am reluctant to do this, but I must criticize your leadership skills." He waved the datapad. "I do not see this item on the agenda at all."


	3. Recharge

_A/N: a little fluffiness as a relief from all the perv. ^__^_

A soft chime jerked Barricade out of his recharge. What? Emergency? He blearily slapped his wrist comm, his alarm coder. The chime sounded again. His door. Who? Nobody every came to his recharge station. Why would they? Just so much easier to hit him on comm, if they needed to contact him at all.

He staggered to the door, barely navigating the paths in the piles of crud strewn on the floor. One day he'd have to clean this place up. Then again, why? No one ever saw it. Until now. He paused, cycling his eyes to highlight before he opened the door.

"Hey there, little spike," Skywarp said, blocking so much light from the corridor that for a moment, Barricade's highlight eyes were blind. "Can I come in?"

It was hard to refuse a mech who was twice your size, but Barricade tried. "Uhhh, kind of a mess," he said, sheepishly.

Skywarp scoffed, pushing past him. "Didn't come here for decorating tips." He paused, looking around. "Cozy, though. Little cramped." Well, it would be, for someone his size. He picked his way over to Barricade's berth, pausing to move a datareader and three trax to a low shelf. He settled himself on the edge of the berth, a little surprised that Barricade stood in the door, backlit, confused. Skywarp gestured. "Well, come on over. And you can close the door, you know. Not going to bite. Unless…." He winked.

Numbly, Barricade closed the door and approached the berth. He still wasn't used to the idea that the Seeker, well, he wasn't even sure how he could finish that sentence. Did the Seeker want him, for him, for Barricade himself? Unlikely. Did he want just to use him for spiking? It seemed that way, but he had plenty of other choices if he wanted them. Barricade didn't think anyone would refuse Skywarp. Or even if it would do them any good—if Skywarp wanted you, he took you. Barricade knew that from experience. Did Barricade even care?

"Silly little spike. Begin to think you're afraid of me." Well…. Skywarp reached over, and tugged Barricade between his legs. Even perched on the low berth, he was taller than Barricade, his knee joints encircling the smaller mech easily. He pulled Barricade into an embrace, pressing Barricade's face against his shoulder.

It felt....good. In a way. The big Seeker's powerful arms around his shoulders, his face inches from Barricade's. He felt surrounded, enveloped. In a good way.

"Came to apologize." Skywarp's vocalizer rumbled against his audio. "Starscream explained the whole thing to me."

What whole thing? "Uhhh,"

"Shhhh, don't worry. I get it."

"Get what?"

"Starscream said that maybe I went a little too far in the meeting today. You know. Embarrassed you."

Well, it WAS embarrassing, but it was also hot and flattering and possibly the best sex he'd ever had. Mixed feelings much?

"I'm okay," Barricade mumbled, his words getting lost in Skywarp's neck. He was less okay with the idea that the two of them had been talking about him.

"Don't want you to have, you know, problems. Because of me."

"I can handle it," Barricade said. He wasn't made of glass. He'd handled worse. He could handle this. This would be worth handling. Already the others looked at him differently. Not with respect, necessarily—he'd been pretty helpless the whole time—but looking at him as if they must have missed something before, something that Skywarp saw.

"Ohhhhh," Skywarp said, as if it were the cutest thing in the world. "I know you can. I just don't want you to have to." Barricade's heart sank. Did this mean…it was over? Yeah, that would make sense. Hi! Have some fantastic sex. Begin to feel wanted. Oh, sorry, didn't mean to complicate your life. Bye. Dammit, he wanted his life complicated. This way, at least.

His hands came up, tightening on the Seeker's shoulder armor. One last…touch. Prolong this moment before he leaves. He shifted his face, nuzzling into the black-armored throat. Skywarp gave a small contented sound. He pushed Barricade away, gently, the smaller mech resisting as hard as he could. Skywarp held him by his shoulders, lowering his head to look him in the eye. "I make you uncomfortable, little spike. Makes me sad."

Barricade's talons closed helplessly on empty air. Oh. "Yeah. Okay." He twisted his shoulders out from Skywarp's grasp. "I get it."

Skywarp tilted his head, curious. "I don't think you do."

"Yeah, I do. Look, really. It was…fucking mindblowing. And it's over. Fine. No complaints here." Right. No complaints. Just one long aching wish it wasn't over.

Skywarp's hands dropped into his lap. "Barricade. No." He reached out, brushing Barricade's chassis with one talon. "You are ridiculously cute when you're playing tough, though." A little smile, that faded when Barricade didn't respond.

"It's fine. I appreciate it. Really. Appreciate the whole thing: that it happened at all, and that you're doing this. Privately."

Skywarp's mouth moved in a series of expressions Barricade couldn't track. "Going to have to do this the hard way, aren't I?"

"Yeah, this isn't hard enough," Barricade said, bitterly.

Skywarp laughed. "Barricade, stop talking. Get the fuck over here."

"No."

"Defiant, are you? Fine. I can work with that." The long arms reached out, jerking Barricade against Skywarp. One long finger tilted his chin upward, and he felt the yielding warmth of Skywarp's mouth against his. His own mouth opened in surprise, and Skywarp's glossa probed, gently, the hand tracing an insistent trail down his back.

Barricade's mind was confused, but his body flared with arousal, his hands coming up to the Seeker's shoulders again, his smaller talons probing under the armor plating, his mouth warming to Skywarp's kiss. Skywarp purred. His arms tightened around Barricade again, and the smaller mech found himself hurled onto his berth, the Seeker over him, on him, all that weight pressing against him. It felt…good. Oh don't leave. Don't get off me. Don't leave this emptiness on my body. In my life.

Skywarp broke the kiss. "Going to listen to me, now?"

"Don't have a choice, do I?"

Skywarp brushed his lips with another kiss. "You're starting to learn, aren't you?"

"Do not know what you're doing here."

"I? I came to apologize. Starscream and I…we play rough. Others get hurt."

"Not hurt."

"Yeah, well, doesn't mean I didn't do anything wrong." You didn't. You didn't do anything wrong. Just don't leave. Barricade's hands clutched over the Seeker's arms. "Besides," Skywarp murmured. "I have a favor to ask."

Anything. Ask anything. I will. It's yours. "What?"

"Can…can I recharge here tonight? With you?"

"Recha—why?"

The smile left Skywarp's face. Now he really did look sad. "I have bad memory purges when I recharge. It's better if I'm not alone."

"Starscream?"

"I don't want him to know, little spike. Like I said, we play kind of rough." A hint of the smile returning, but a little lopsided, as if hastily or clumsily slapped on. "See, it really is all about me. I'm just using you." Use me. Fine. Just don't leave. Barricade was a little scared at how desperate he was feeling; how quickly he'd gotten attached. Part of him wanted to refuse the request, just to reassert a boundary, prove to Skywarp, prove to himself, that he still had some control. But…recharging with another mech. He looked up, and saw naked vulnerability in Skywarp's face. And he couldn't refuse. Even if he'd wanted to.

"Yes." He brushed Skywarp's face with light fingers.


	4. Gossip

_A/N: Yay! More robots-getting-laid! Sorry. I know this is probably a huge disappointment to (my gramma) fans of my more serious stuff: this is fun for me, and I do enough torturous things to robots: they deserve a break, don't you think? _

_I worry about Starscream's sense of humor at times. I mean, from Skywarp, you'd almost expect it. _

Barricade spent the first half of his shift in a fuzzy warm glow, despite being a little…underrecharged. There was, of course, the physical affect of having had his electromagnetic field blended with Skywarp's as they co-recharged, that kept ions tingling in his own field. But there was also another tingle, just as unfamiliar. He was…wanted. Trusted. Skywarp had woken once in the night, whimpering and clutching Barricade closer, as if the simple contact made him feel better.

He'd had the hardest time dropping back into low-power recharge after that, just in a sort of rigid awe that he had the power, the ability, to comfort anyone. That had also contributed to his fuzzy glow, carrying him through the tedious rounds of logging traffic and analyzing reports.

His fuel zip pinged him—he needed some energon. A little earlier than usual, but perhaps being up most of the recharge cycle forced more fuel consumption. Not that he minded. He was already trying not to get too eager about this upcoming recharge cycle. Anything you think will happen, anything you want to happen, he told himself…always goes wrong. Hope for nothing. Expect nothing.

He snapped a datapad onto his thigh plate by its magnets, and headed to the lower-level refectory. Still early enough that it was crowded—exactly what he normally avoided. But his fuel reservoir was adamant, and, well, what was the big deal, anyway?

He held out his wrist unit for the service bot to scan. It recorded his name, rank, duties for the day, and current fuel levels, calculating, based on his assigned duties, his approximate ration. It scuttled off to fetch his ration.

A large shape bulked beside him. "So, honestly, you spiking the Seekers? For real?" Brawl, from the meeting.

"Uhhhh, you kind of saw it happen." As did the entire Decepticon high command.

"Yeah, but…I mean, more than that?"

Barricade ducked his head. It probably wouldn't do the Seekers any good for him to brag about it. They had their own reputations. And while their size, relative power, and rank kept them immune from some of the repercussions of their actions…well, at the very least, using the small, weak, CIO as a spiketoy to disrupt Soundwave's meeting could be written off as a joke or a kink. Voluntarily doing it more than once, in private, and it became a perversion. They didn't need that.

"A little. Once before that."

Brawl looked disappointed. Barricade felt a little better. They weren't going to get labeled as perverts for interfacing with him just once. Their sense of humor might be questioned, but…no Decepticon had what could be considered a 'normal' sense of humor.

"So…you've done Starscream, right?"

Barricade hesitated again. Not…really. It would be skirting a lie to say he'd had any sort of active role—he'd pretty much done what they'd directed, or been used by them. 'Doing' Starscream had comprised being pushed into him by Skywarp. Skywarp. A shiver ran through him at the memory. "Not exactly."

Brawl frowned. "Kinda wondered what he was like. Whether he liked spike or, you know."

"Don't know," Barricade muttered, optics eagerly seeking out the service bot holding his energon ration over its head. Starscream's mouth around his spike flashed through his processor again, the soft moans he'd made when Barricade's spike had overloaded in his mouth…. He could see exactly what Brawl would do if he knew. It was ugly.

"Holding out on us, are you?" Brawl said.

Barricade shrugged, reaching for his ration. "You saw—I didn't have much say in what happened."

Brawl grinned. "Yeah, kind of noticed." His optics raked up and down Barricade's body, appraisingly. Barricade slipped his datapad over, self-consciously, snatched his ration, and moved to find a fuel station.

He'd settled himself on a table, inserting his ration in the autoinjector. He keyed on his datapad before connecting the refuel injector to the intake under his chassis, and settled in to read. A study of propaganda through the Protectorate. Dull on the surface, but if one considered the uses one could apply the same principles to….

"Barricade!" Starscream's…unique vocal timbre cut through the crowd. Barricade jumped, nearly dropping his datapad mid-scroll. He struggled to his feet, hand fumbling for the injector still in his intake. If he'd chosen to ingest the energon ration orally, he'd've managed to spill it all across the table.

"Yes! Right here!" His talons tangled in the injector's hose. He muttered a curse, looking down, juggling his datapad and the autoinjector.

Starscream stormed across the refectory, the crowd parting, silence rippling in his wake. He looked furious. Barricade quailed.

"Barricade!" Starscream repeated, drawing himself up across the narrow surface of the refuel station. He glared at Barricade, and bent, sweeping the table clear—injectors snapping from their couplings, Barricade's datapad sailing across the room. Starscream splayed a hand across the surface, bending low. "I did not think," the Seeker snarled, loud, "that you would stoop to gossip."

Barricade froze. He'd been so careful. He tried to think over what he'd said. He'd tried so hard—should he have denied everything? But there was what the others had seen. He couldn't lie. "I-I…" He didn't know where to look. His optics dashed from side to side, frantic for an escape vector. All he saw was the refectory filled with mechs, a sea of red optics, all turned to face the delicious spectacle of one of Starscream's notorious rages.

Starscream bent lower, pushing forward. Barricade shrank back. "I'm sorry?" he squeaked.

"Sorry? You're sorry? You lied!" Starscream banged his taloned fist on the table. Barricade flinched.

"But—but…," He hadn't lied. He hadn't.

Starscream lunged forward. Barricade twitched back, bumping against the back of the recharge station. He pressed himself flat. The jet hooked his talons under Barricade's grille, jerking him forward. "You lied," the Seeker repeated.

"How?"

"You said we had not interfaced. That is a lie, Barricade."

Barricade's optics flew to the watching crowd. He felt his armor overheat from embarrassment. "I was trying…to…." Whatever Barricade had been trying to say got muffled as the jet pulled him into a kiss, his long talons curving over the smaller mech's body.

"We have," Starscream announced, breaking the kiss, "interfaced. There shall be," his optics glinted, wickedly, "no mistake about that." He leapt agilely onto the recharge surface, pulling Barricade to him. "Take me," he whispered.

"What? No, I can't—"

"You can. You will." Starscream's voice took on an edge. Louder, he said, "You know I cannot stay away from you, Barricade." He sucked in a cycle of air, nuzzling showily into Barricade's neck. Barricade's sensornet sizzled. His arms came up to encircle the jet's neck, stroking along the broad shoulders tentatively. It always felt like it was somewhere between Opposite Day and Surrealism Festival with the two Seekers. How had he never noticed that before?

"Harder," Starscream whispered, the vibrations tickling Barricade's audio.

"What?"

Starscream lifted his head, raising his voice again. "Oh! Harder! Stop teasing me!"

Barricade blinked, stupidly. What the spark was Starscream up to? The jet reached behind the smaller mech, pinching at his wing fairings. Barricade moaned, his talons clutching involuntarily at the jet's shoulders. Starscream hissed with pleasure. "Yessssss." Starscream settled himself on the recharge table, pulling the smaller mech between his dangling legs. Barricade caught one last glimpse of the crowd, mouths agape, eagerly watching. "Take me," Starscream moaned, showily. "I must have you again."

"Uhhhhh," Barricade placed his hands awkwardly on the jet's chassis. "This all right?"

Starscream squirmed. "Do not ask me," he whispered. "You are to take me." Louder, "I want you again. Already. Now. Please."

This was…so bizarre. Right. Barricade ran his talons across the jet's broad body, down the long, powerful arms. Like Skywarp's but not like his, at the same time. Too-familiar fingers returned the teasing touches, a too-similar face pulled his in for another kiss. One of the hands crept between his thighs, reaching for his spike cover. Barricade tried to jerk away, but Starscream held him pinned by his other arm across the smaller mech's shoulders.

"Here? I can't."

"You can. I want you. And you need this."

"Not here!" Sure, he was a little on the undersexed side of the line, but…couldn't this be handled privately?

"Yes, you do. Here." The eyes went serious for a moment, but then glittered mischievously. "Now, spike me. I am ready to put on quite a little show for our audience." The long talons released his spike cover, brushing once against the extended spike in a blatant torment.

"Uhhh, right." Barricade pushed the Seeker back, gently. Starscream fell back on his elbows, harder than Barricade pushed, and autoreleased his valve cover. Barricade looked up at the jet, then down at the valve, biting his labial plate. Did Starscream really want him to? In front of everyone? COULD he?

He pushed in slowly, the lubricant spreading languorously down his spike as it coated the Seeker's valve. He watched the jet's face anxiously for any sign that the joke was over. Starscream fluttered his optics closed, moaning. "Oh, do not tease me like this," the jet said. "Not again. I cannot bear it."

Barricade moved his spike gently in the valve, watching the jet moan and writhe. Oh, if only this wasn't an act, Barricade would feel like a demigod of spiking to cause such a reaction in the jet. Even knowing it was all an act, it was heady. To even pretend to have this kind of power—dizzying.

The jet moaned again, his talons reaching for Barricade's hips, to pull him harder, deeper. "No!" he whined, "Harder. Please. You know how crazy it makes me when you're so cruel like this!" Okay, that was pushing it a bit far into bad scripting, but still…Starscream was ridiculously hot. The only other time he'd been with him, Barricade had been so overwhelmed by the experience that he really didn't appreciate the jet himself. Almost involuntarily—his sensornet taking over—he pushed harder and more firmly into the valve. Starscream rolled his head back, panting. Barricade's sensornet fired signals in all directions, aroused by the jet—it was an act, a show, just pretend, he told himself, but…well, no one had ever even bothered to act before for him. Just…the effort behind that was a consideration he never got.

Starscream cried out, loud enough that a mech entering the refectory dropped his ration from startled fingers, and more than a few of the nearer audience members 'whoofed' in sympathy. The jet curled one heel against Barricade's backside, holding him in. The rippling spasm of the valve finally pushed him over the edge—Barricade overloaded into the jet with a shudder that arched his back, and clutched his fingers deep into the jet's thigh cables.

He stood there, trembling, feeling sheepish, suddenly aware of the eyes on him, of what he was doing. Of what he had dared to do. He stuffed his still-aroused spike ruthlessly back in its housing with shaky talons. He could clean it later. The jet's valve was another issue. He reached in a storage compartment for a cleansing rag. "Sorry," he muttered, moving to wipe the valve's exterior oozing with his transfluid.

The jet shuddered. "Oh!"

Barricade twitched. Stupid mech. Of course. What had he been thinking? Only of the sticky mess, not of…what trying to clean up the sticky mess would do. Starscream rolled his head around to the front, his heavy-lidded eyes drooping open. "Unwise, little Barricade," he murmured. He pushed the mech back, sliding off the table, coming to rest on his knees in front of Barricade. Starscream wrapped his arms around Barricade's waist, in a posture of utter submission, his cheek flare resting against one of Barricade's hips. The smaller mech stroked the jet's head, shyly, self-consciously.

The jet stood up, hauling Barricade onto his shoulder. What the--? "We are not finished," the jet announced to the crowd. "It may be many cycles before Barricade is able to return to work. Please make sure his shift is covered." A few startled, bemused expressions. More than a few. And more than a few envious ones.

Starscream headed to the door, Barricade slung over his shoulder like a doll.

Barricade, shocked into stillness, summoned up some resistance once they reached the corridor. "Right," he said, as Starscream drew to a stop. "Can put me down now. No one's looking."

Starscream dropped to his knees, swinging Barricade off his shoulder and against the wall. "While I do enjoy performing for an audience, I was not dishonest. I am not," he said, his eyes following his fingers as he traced a line down the long plate of Barricade's upper arm tire armor, "finished with you." Barricade shivered, a little glad the hard cool metal of the bulkhead was supporting him. "Barricade?" the jet said, softly. "May I spike you?"

"I…uhhhh, I can't exactly stop you."

"That is not what I asked, Barricade."

The smaller mech looked up at Starscream's face, looking for some hint of the aggression and humiliation he'd always seen from others wanting to spike him. 'Take it, you slut,' they'd say, sneering even as they drove into him. As if he'd wanted it. But…nothing. None of that was on the jet's face. "Yeah," he said, a little surprised at the shakiness of his voice. "If you want."

"Here?"

Barricade looked around. "Wouldn't be the first time," he said, bitterly.

"Hush," Starscream murmured, leaning in to nuzzle his audio. "This is not that." He crouched lower on his knees, so their pelvic armor was about level. He traced Barricade's upper tire slowly, drawing the tire's rim in a complete circle. Barricade closed his eyes into the sensation, barely feeling his valve cover released by the jet's other hand. He gritted his eyes closed as he felt the cool presence of the jet's spike sliding into his valve, waiting for…pain. Humiliation. Rage. Helplessness. He braced himself against sensations that never came.

For a long moment, as the jet's spike moved in him, he felt…nothing. And it was a blessed kind of nothing—not pain. But then his sensornet fired again, remembering the pressure and arousal of when he'd been between the two Seekers and it had been Skywarp's spike pressing into his valve and he had felt…only desire. That desire rose back in him again. He opened his eyes to see Starscream's upper chest armor rising and falling in front of his eyes. He threw one arm over the jet's shoulder, planting fierce kisses along the armor, little whimpers, almost mewlings, coming from his vocalizer.

Starscream's venting was ragged—Barricade could feel him holding off an overload. Waiting, holding off, for Barricade. Again, this strange consideration, this unaccustomed effort. It should have made Barricade suspicious. Instead, he quivered, tensing his whole frame, almost resisting the rising flood of his own overload. Until he could not hold back any longer. He made some odd sound, something like, "Muh!" as the overload rocketed through his sensornet, trailing ripples of electricity. The jet's own overload, hot and hard and wet, sent a second and third wave of spasms across his body. His talons clutched into Starscream's shoulder servos.

"That did not hurt you?" Starscream whispered. Behind him, Barricade could hear footsteps, slowing as they approached and saw the Seeker obviously spiking some mech. "I mean," he corrected, to be overheard, "Was that was you requested? Did I please you, my master?"

Behind him it sounded like one of the mechs snarfed his entire ration. My master? Was Starscream crazy? Okay, scratch that. But was the jet really thinking through what he was saying? Implying—okay, way more than implying—that he was in some dom/sub relationship? Well, they kind of were, but Barricade was most definitely not the one in charge.

"Yeah," Barricade said, dumbly, "It was…really good."

"Oh, I am so glad that I please you," the jet gushed, his eyes winking wickedly. The steps retreated, hurriedly, doubtless to spread even more gossip.

A moment of silence. "Okay, Starscream. Going to tell me what that was all about? And don't keep saying I need it."

"But you do. Think of it as our way of…protecting you." Great. That was a new one. Protection service through public sex? He'd love to see that business plan. Get in on the ground floor investments, too. The jet nuzzled again, withdrawing his spike gently. "Besides, Skywarp asked me to do this part."

"Skywarp did?"

"He was afraid you would have a bad reaction and…he did not want it associated with him."

"So…you spiked me for psychotraumatic research." Well, that deflated that fantasy.

"In part. I shall not deny that. But the refectory…well. That was my doing." Starscream preened.

"Neat set up. I don't think anyone suspected a thing." Other than the jet was crazier than they'd thought.

"Not just the set up," Starscream said. "I do not share Skywarp's fascination with grounders, but…I can see the appeal for you." Easy victimhood, apparently, Barricade thought. "And he said I could borrow you," the jet shrugged, easily. "So I did." Oh great. Just borrow me. Like a shovel. But somehow he didn't really feel up to complaining.

"Think you went a bit far with the dom/sub thing."

"You think so? I thought it was a nice touch, myself, to make it memorable to passersby."

"Oh, I think it's memorable enough." Dear Primus!

"And I did not want them to think that we were violating you. Especially when I was spiking you. It seemed the natural choice."

"Gonna come back against you, you know, if they think you're a sub."

Starscream smirked. "It has not before." Well, that opened an entirely new railway for trains of thought. Barricade ex-vented. The jet enjoyed his discomfiture, adding, "How do you think Skywarp learned that he enjoyed holding someone else down?" Oh. My. Barricade shivered at the thought, his hands bracing himself against the wall. Starscream winked at him. "Speaking of that, was Skywarp with you last recharge cycle?"

Barricade blinked. "Yes," he said. Was there a problem with that? He frowned. Should he have said that? It was too easily verifiable.

"Did you co-recharge?" Starscream stroked the smaller mech's head. Distraction. Don't be distracted. Why did he want to know?

"Yes." Again, verifiable.

"Ah! Did you like it?" Starscream slicked his glossa across Barricade's mouth.

Barricade shivered, between the memory and the sensuous tickle of Starscream's kiss. "Yeah."

"Good."

Barricade braced himself for the prying question, what Starscream really wanted. What this was really all about.

Starscream ran one set of his thumbs down the sides of Barricade's grille, tickling the headlamps. Barricade shivered, trying to keep his head level. "You will do it again?" Trying too hard to be casual.

"Yes—if he wants," Barricade added, quickly.

"He has bad dreams?" Starscream ran his other hand down Barricade's thigh.

Okay, this he knew to lie for. "No—not that I know about." He couldn't say for absolute certain it was a bad memory purge last recharge. Wasn't—really—a lie.

Starscream gave him a curious, disbelieving look. "Do not tell him this, Barricade, but I worry about him. Please take care of him." The jet ducked lower, his eyes inches from Barricade's, blazing with sincerity. "I trust you."

You're an idiot, then, Barricade thought. We aren't friends. We've never been friends. But…Skywarp. The memory of that soft whimper, the arms clutching him closer, the face nuzzling against him in his recharge. Unconscious responses. To Barricade. "Yeah," he said. "On this. You can trust me."

"I know," Starscream said, pausing to kiss Barricade, gently. "I know because I have just now heard you lie for him."

Well, that made about…as much sense as anything since Barricade had even gotten himself involved with the Seekers. And just about as much sense as what Starscream did next: rolled back onto the floor in the middle of the hallway, pulling Barricade on top of him, pushing one of the smaller mech's hands down onto his thigh. "Oh!" Starscream cried. "You are so cruel! I cannot bear it!"

A passing group of mechs from the refectory had to step—carefully—through the jet's splayed legs, pausing to get an optic full of the smaller mech (apparently) having thrown the Seeker to the ground and toying with him mercilessly. After they passed, the jet pulled Barricade's audio to his mouth. "You still have several cycles I have just claimed. And I know where Skywarp is…." His optics winked.

"You two are weird." Still, the delicious prospect was…hard to resist.

"Oh, you have seen nothing yet," Starscream said, rolling to his feet. "We went easy on you last time."


	5. Damaged

_A/N: In real life, humans will always, in an argument, choose their own familiar defenses and walls, rather than letting them down and opening themselves up to the other person's enormous capacity to hurt them. But this is fantasy. Things can be different here.  
_

Skywarp was having another bad memory purge. Barricade had wordlessly, without even dreaming of a complaint, gotten accustomed to being woken from his recharge two or three times a recharge cycle as the larger mech clutched at him, sometimes whimpering and twitching. He hadn't complained—his workstation had online-recharge plugs, and it was no big thing to plug himself into that while he was working. The only thing that bothered him was his growing feeling of helplessness. At first it had been enough that Skywarp took comfort in his presence, but that had faded, and he was left feeling impotent and helpless that he couldn't do more.

And the purges were getting worse.

Barricade felt Skywarp's long forearms tug him closer, scraping his hip against the larger mech's chassis. This time the jet was also hyperventing—forcing his exhaust in short hot bursts.

Barricade brushed one of the upper arms that encircled him gently with one talon. If his presence soothed the jet, maybe touching him would help?

Skywarp whimpered. Against his ankle servos, Barricade felt the mech's legs twitching. The arm over him shifted, stretching overhead as if reaching for something. Barricade pushed himself upright, stroking his small talonpoints gently around the heavy armor plates. It seemed to help: the twitching slowed, the whimpers faded. Even the ventilation steadied. Emboldened, Barricade reached to stroke the wingflaps folded behind Skywarp's shoulder.

And that's when it all went wrong.

Skywarp howled, the upraised arm bludgeoning down against the smaller mech's shoulders, the other hand tearing at his armor, throwing him off the recharge berth entirely, crashing head-down against the far wall with a snapping sound as one of his arm fairings gave, and cracked a heel-plate.

Barricade lay crumpled, helplessly, stupidly, feeling energon and joint fluid trickle down his arm, the blasts of pain redlighting his optical screen, making reality seem dense and far away.

He saw Skywarp lunge off the recharge for him. His optics failed as his capacitor raced in fear.

*****

"Oh." The arms caught him up again, lifting him off the floor, crushing him against the large chassis. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He felt Skywarp's mouth against the top of his head, his exventing hot on the prongs of his facial armor. Skywarp's whole body seemed to be trembling, but that could be a false read through Barricade's damaged systems.

Barricade twisted until the pain from his injured arm left him gasping. "Let me go!" he managed to push into the larger mech's chest. He was feeling—he couldn't even describe how he was feeling. Helplessness and pathetic and shame and pain and anger and fear and why did this happen and I was only trying to help and I fuck everything up everything you see it's only a matter of time until I go too far and this is what happens I deserve this this is all my fault should have known better. All at once.

"No, little spike," Skywarp murmured. "I'm sorry. It was a bad dream, and oh I hurt you!" Despair was live and raw in his voice as he lifted one arm away to examine the injury.

"'M fine. Be fine." He winced as he tried to use his arm to push away from the jet. Just leave me alone. Go back, recharge, and maybe you can wake up and think this was just a bad purge too. I wish it was. I wish I could wake up and this not have happened. Why did I do that? Why did I think I could help?

"You'll be fine when we get you to repair bay."

"Don't need to go." Please, just leave me alone. I deserve this. I went too far. I am sorry. Not you. Me.

"Nonsense." It was nonsense—power was down 30% in that arm, even though his self-repair systems were doing their best to reroute and contain the fluid leaks. And it irritated Barricade to be reminded that it was nonsense. "You're going, because I'm taking you there." Skywarp stood up, Barricade's legs dangling helplessly above the floor.

"Put me DOWN! Stop treating me like a fucking sparkling!"

Skywarp pulled away, hurt. "Little sp—Barricade, is—is that how you really feel?" He didn't seem to notice, or mind, that he was getting Barricade's energon on his arms and chest.

"You treat me like a sparkling just because I'm smaller."

"Noooooo," Skywarp breathed. "That's not it at all. I'll explain. In repair bay." He effectively cut off Barricade's complaints by kissing him. In spite of it all, his kiss left Barricade breathless.

*****  
"Fine. We're here," Barricade growled from the repair cradle. Three repairbots clustered around his injured shoulder. "Now explain how you don't treat me like I'm an idiot." He gritted his jaw in satisfaction as Skywarp flinched. Why did he want to hurt him suddenly? Because he'd been hurt? Part of Barricade wanted to shut up, to keep silent. But there was no way to pull those words back out of the air.

"I'm just trying to be careful."

"Don't need it."

"It makes me happy to treat you decently. I know you've been through…bad things."

The repair bots whined in protest as Barricade squirmed under them. A thousand angry protests raced through his processor. He'd been talking to Starscream. Starscream: the Jet Who Couldn't Keep a Secret. Not that it was all that secret, really. "None of his business to say anything," Barricade snapped, only realizing a moment later he was responding to his own train of thought and not Skywarp. Somehow the jet followed him.

"If I waited for you to say something…?"

"Wouldn't." To his own audio he sounded sullen.

"My point. His point."

"Don't need to know."

"I don't? Why not?"

Barricade snarled again. "Don't want you to know," he corrected, grudgingly. "Weak, pathetic. Helpless." Those three words. Again.

"If I didn't know, I'd've messed things up so badly for you, little spike."

"How?" he said, tasting anger in his own words. Anger at whom?

Skywarp sighed, leaning back against one of the cradle's support posts. "Barricade. I know what happens to the little guys. Especially the little smart ones. Not something I want to picture happening to you, even though I know it has. Least I can do is not contribute to that."

Barricade turned his head away, getting an opticful of repair bot aft for his gesture. Probably symbolic of something, he thought. They had patched the ruptured lines, and were clicking away specs for the replacement fairing they would have to make. The upper tire lay next to him on the cradle, disconnected, the tire burst from its rim, flaccid and sad.

"I'd tell you if anything bothered me," he muttered.

"No. You wouldn't, little spike. You're too tough and too proud for that."

Proud? Was he delusional? More like desperate. More like do anything, take anything, for this not to end. Barricade continued to stare at his burst tire.

"I guess," Skywarp's voice was so small that in spite of himself, Barricade turned his head to hear. "I guess you won't want to recharge with me anymore."

Primus, no. No no no. That was all wrong. Barricade clutched at one of Skywarp's black barbed hands, his silver talons weaving between the dark armor, not even caring that the barbs cut into chinks in his armor. He probably had desperation scrawled across his face. "Do. Want to. Yes. Still." He frowned, frustrated at the chopped telegraphy of his thoughts. It was either that or overflow a mass of words, begging, pleading, apologizing, self-blaming…. Maybe he was proud, if he refused to open himself to that.

Or maybe he was just afraid.

"I hurt you, little spike." Skywarp's red optics were sad, his sockets tilting down at the corners.

"Been hurt worse." Proud. Yes. Skywarp knew him better than he knew himself. He tightened his grip on the larger mech. "Don't know," he said, forcing the words out of his mouth, over that knot in his vocalizer, "what I did wrong. Don't know what not to do again."

"We'll talk about that later," Skywarp said, gently.

"Talk about it now."

"Why?"

"Want to know how not to upset you again."

Skywarp smiled, the dim light of the repair bay cradle lamps glittering off the shifting of his facial plates. The effect was dazzling. He probably knew it. Barricade didn't care if he did or not. "That's the point, little spike. You don't want to hurt me: I don't want to hurt you. Doesn't stop it from happening, though." His eyes flickered over to the repair bots, who were prepping the new armor for installation.

"Accept that," Barricade said, bluntly. "Don't want you upset when it happens that you hurt me."

A long silence. Skywarp traced a line down Barricade's uninjured shoulder, his optics on the progress of his talon. "Why I like you, Barricade. We're both damaged."

"You're not. And I'm fine." He struggled to sit up, tired of lying down, literally and figuratively. His arm felt…weird without the extra weight of the upper tire assembly. The repair bots protested, trying to draw him back down onto the cradle with their delicate forearms.

"You are not 'fine'," Skywarp argued. "Starscream told me."

What had been a dull anger, like a pool of gasoline, burst into white-hot flame. "What does he know? And he's wrong!" The anger took off, tearing away any sense of control. "And what the frag was that about having him spike me? Like that's not going to bother me? Not worth doing yourself?" Underneath the hot anger he felt an icy fear at the words he was saying. He did not feel like this. He didn't. Where was this coming from?

"Little spike—" Skywarp looked stricken. "I-I thought it would help."

"Wrong. You thought it would protect you if anything went wrong. At least—at least I was trying to make you feel better." Trying and failing. If only I hadn't have tried, we wouldn't be here. Having this argument. The argument seemed somehow inevitable once he'd started the whole thing rolling by his overreach.

Skywarp physically staggered back at the accusation. Something, Barricade thought grimly, struck home.

"Barri…." His voice trailed off, giving up, Barricade thought. His downswept wings shifted, the wingflaps quivering with some suppressed emotion. He turned away and took three slow, agonized steps to the door.

All Barricade could see was the bright silver of the jet's engine mounts receding, like a dream torn away by morning. He ached all over with his misery, as if someone had stripped off all of his armor and abraded him against unyielding stone. Don't go! He wanted to shout. But it was probably the right decision. It certainly was not Barricade's decision to make.

Skywarp hesitated at the door, resting one arm against the frame, and his head against his arm. Barricade could hear the raggedness of his ventilation from across the room. Leave, he thought. Leave and get it over with. Just…don't hurt yourself any longer. Not over me. Not about me. And suddenly his ugly rage made perfect sense—an attempt to lance the ties between them, to cut Skywarp cleanly free of the neverending fuckup that is Barricade.

Skywarp turned, suddenly, and strode back to the repair cradle. Barricade felt every micron of the mech's larger height, broad wingspan, every iota of difference in even their non-battle-modded weaponry. Barricade braced himself for the angry torrent he deserved. He could take it. He would take anything if it would help Skywarp be free of him. Free to find someone undamaged. He felt…strangely calm underneath a torrent of misery. This is, that calm told him, for the best. This is a pure and unselfish act. It just feels awful because it's the first pure and unselfish act you've ever done. Of course it feels weird. Alien. Unfamiliar.

But still. Still. He would do anything to erase his stupid attempt to help. He should have known he was useless. Powerless. He had known. He had just been deluded, seduced, into thinking otherwise.

Skywarp loomed over him, some fierce and terrible expression on his face, his eyes dark with emotion. The repair bots quailed back, abandoning Barricade.

The black jet fell to his knees in front of the cradle, pressing his armored face against Barricade's uninjured side, one hand clutching hard at the smaller mech's hip. Barricade could see his large engines over his bowed back. "Starscream," his voice grated. He paused. Began again. "The hold I have over Starscream. Many, many ages ago, he injured me." He unfolded his right wing. "If you look closely, you can see the scars. They never healed right." His voice was soft, the words pressing warm air into Barricade's grille.

A pause. Barricade's turn to say something. After a long study, he could see a slight discoloration in the metal, a long jagged streak, almost as if someone had streaked paint. "Can barely see them."

"I know. But he can. And every time he looks at me? That's all he can see." He raised his head from Barricade's side. "Sometimes," he whispered, "I wish I'd injured him. So we'd be even. Not in a payback way, you know? But so he'd have learned, he'd know, that just hurting someone isn't enough to destroy everything." He lay his head back down, one of his barbed, wicked looking talons extending to trace a slow line over the contour of Barricade's hand.

Barricade's other hand moved to stroke the back of Skywarp's helm, the four points of his talons feeling blindly at the intricate overlapping plates so lightly Skywarp might not have felt them at all. He couldn't think of the right thing to say. And words…words had caused all of this. He didn't trust them any more. Not that his actions had done much better, but he couldn't resist. He wanted Skywarp so badly, his hand seemed almost magnetized to touch the jet. He really wanted to curl onto that side, wrap both of his arms around Skywarp's shoulders, and lay there until he'd convinced the jet that all this emotion, all this worry, about HIM, was so much nonsense. But that, he thought, that would be too far. Too much. Just take this. Take what is offered. Don't reach for more. Ever.

"We're both damaged," Barricade said, thinly, echoing Skywarp's words. He didn't trust his own anymore.

Skywarp lifted his head again, his optics casting warmth over Barricade's grille. "We're even like that. You understand what Starscream doesn't."

"Yeah," Barricade said, warily. "And?" The sick calm took over again. Pure. Unselfish. Do not speak your opinion. You have no right to one. You caused this—it is up to him to respond. How he wants to. He felt a mad desire to stare over at his ruined tire again, but the repair bots had snatched it away and were remounting it to a new rim. No distraction. Nothing he could blame the emotion crackling his voice on. That, he could not help either. But he did his best to stay out of Skywarp's way.

It struck Barricade suddenly that the scarred wing was the same one he had touched that had started this. It was more than metal that had not healed. The thought made him tighten his hands—one around Skywarp's hand, the other over his shoulder. Skywarp bowed his head at the touches.

"And, little spike, Barricade," he breathed, "What can I do to make it better?" The question cost the normally-cocky Seeker more than he let on.

"Spike me." Barricade clenched his hands around Skywarp, resisting his pull away.

"You can't—"

"Do it. Please." A hesitation while he swallowed down on something like a sob. "I want you to." Want YOU to, his processor echoed. Take me. Take from me. It is all I have to offer. All I can to do try to prove to you…something I cannot even put into words.

Skywarp read his face, and nodded, slowly. "Yes," he said, leaning forward to kiss Barricade, his hand skirting the missing part of Barricade's arm. He clicked open his interface panel, releasing his spike cover as Barricade did the same. He paused, as if bracing himself, looking down at Barricade's glossy black armored body, laid open for him. His optics half shuttered, the irises spiralling wide in pleasure. When he pushed his spike into Barricade, it was thick with lubricant. Barricade shifted his hips, raising them to meet Skywarp's pelvic frame. The jet reached his arms under the smaller mech, so that Barricade lay along the stretch of his forearms. He bent low.

"Yes?"

"Yes."

Skywarp began sliding his spike in the valve, slowly, carefully, his hands stroking at Barricade's shoulders, the wing-fairings behind his neck. Barricade's own hands clutched into the jet's upper arms. Barricade felt acutely his openness, his vulnerability. How easily Skywarp could hurt him. How carefully, more important, Skywarp was working not to hurt him. The thought sent a surge of pure desire, a whitish rose colored kind he'd never felt before, shimmering through his sensornet. He moaned, softly.

The sound enflamed Skywarp—his slides became more like thrusts, his ventilation deeper and shorter. The sight of Skywarp, optics shuttering in desire, bent over him, radiating desire, sent a shock through his valve. Barricade had seen hate, and anger, and rage, and revenge and just blank raw power in the faces of those who had spiked him before, but never this. Even Starscream had been…carefully neutral. Skywarp made a feral sound in response to Barricade's moan, and thrust harder against the valve.

Barricade sucked in a deep in-vent and held it, forcibly, as he overloaded, the rosy desire bursting across his sensornet like a supernova, his valve clutching onto Skywarp with all of the force and neediness that Barricade could not show.

Skywarp overloaded, hard, gasping in ragged pants that sounded like sobs. Barricade could feel the hot seep of his transfluid. He wrapped his shorter arms fiercely around the Seeker's midsection, pulling the jet's entire weight on top of him. His talons dug into the support beam of the engine mounts, as if he were trying somehow to pull the jet into him, meld their bodies.

And it struck him what he was doing. Again overreaching. Again, grabbing for more than was offered. He released his grip, suddenly. "Sorry," he muttered, the word echoing back at him from the Seeker's chest armor.

"No," Skywarp said, pulling Barricade against him with the same force. "Don't let go, little spike. Never let go."


	6. Overex

_A/N Another kind of silly piece to lighten things up. And...I admit to an obsession with Onslaught. *hangs head in shame*. _

Barricade groaned as his internal chrono chimed him. He had a cycle until his shift began, and he'd been up half the recharge…with…Skywarp. Not that he was complaining. And when he got to his duty shift, he could use his online-recharge cables and be just fine. It was just the getting from Point A to Point B that would be challenging.

Especially the part about getting out from under Skywarp. Again, not that he was complaining. He found the larger mech's weight comforting, actually. But, unlike Skywarp, he had officially assigned duties. And that led to…, "Skywarp?" he said, softly. He cringed at his own voice, so grating and harsh, even in his softest volume. Nothing like Skywarp's warm baritone. Skywarp muttered, shifting off to one side. Close, only Barricade didn't move fast enough, and now his left arm was pinned under the jet's rib strut, the larger mech's weight pressing his wrist tire hard into the berth. Ow.

He sat up. "Skywarp, can…can I have my hand back? Please?"

"Muh?" The optics unshuttered, the irises spiralling in and out, attempting to focus. Barricade tugged on his arm. Skywarp lifted himself up, catching the hand as Barricade freed it. "Oh look," he said, blearily. "A hand." He brought it to his face, jerking Barricade back down on his side as he brought the smaller mech's silver talons up to his mouth. "Mmmmm," the jet murmured, licking at the long talons. Barricade quivered at the sensation of Skywarp's warm glossa against the sensitive pressure plates in the palm of his hand.

"I…have to…go…" he tried, bravely trying to reclaim his hand. In response, Skywarp pulled him against him.

"Too early," Skywarp said. "You're barely recharged." True. But.

"Dutycycle," he said, lamely.

"Frag dutycycle." Skywarp pulled him into a kiss.

"Wish I could," Barricade said, earnestly. "But, really," he struggled to pull himself away, struggling as well within himself. The EM field between them was a layer of warm fuzz he really didn't want to leave, even though he knew some of that warm fuzziness would follow with his field through the day. "Dutycyle."

"Stay with me," Skywarp said, running his large armored hands down Barricade's back.

Tempting. More tempting than Skywarp would ever know. He allowed himself to get drawn into another kiss, but when Skywarp rolled over, sliding one hand between his thighs, he protested. "Going to be late!"

Skywarp groaned. Almost as if he were the one who had to drag his way out of a warm recharge, but he released Barricade. "Fine," he pouted. "Go then. Enjoy your stupid dutycycle."

Barricade slipped off the edge of Skywarp's recharge berth. Much bigger than the one in his own station—the berth itself was probably bigger than his entire station. He cycled his optics to lowlight, heading over to the maintenance facility to at the very least clean his exterior joints. Trying desperately not to think of Skywarp warm and drowsy on the berth. He swabbed a cleansing rag with regret over his legs, his interface plating. After dutycycle, he should probably go to the maintenance bay and get a full wash of the panel. But this would have to do—he was running out of time.

He crossed over to the large angular shape of Skywarp, sprawled across the berth. One long foot dangled toward the floor. He sat on the edge of the berth, leaning forward over the jet's chassis. Not daring to touch him uninvited. "Not upset, are you?" he asked. "Can be back right after dutycycle." Maybe they could go to the maintenance bay together. He'd never interfaced there before. Not even…unwillingly. He was about to blurt this idea to Skywarp when the large jet pulled him into a fierce embrace.

"Take your time," Skywarp said. "I've got stuff I need to do today also, you know."

No, he didn't know. Skywarp never told Barricade what his official duties were on the Nemesis, and Barricade refused to ask. "All right," he said, a little unevenly, a little hurt. No, don't be silly, he told himself. You can mention the maintenance bay thing later. He'll like it. Primus, he was upset that Starscream had taken him in the refectory, and had promised darkly that as soon as he could come up with something even more outrageous…. "Enjoy your recharge. Sorry to wake you up." He risked a light kiss on the jet's mouth.

"No problem, little spike," Skywarp murmured, drowsily, as Barricade coded the door to leave. Barricade cast one last lingering look over his shoulder at the somnolent mech, and sighed, before he braced himself and marched off to his dutycycle appointment. Another shift of logging aerial assays. Hurray.

He didn't see the wicked glint in Skywarp's slitted optics as the door coded shut behind him.

*****

Barricade's first duty assignment had been to verify the code seals on the rooms containing classified (or higher) information. This hadn't been on his roster last dutycycle when he'd checked, but with Skywarp around, everyone was jumping to inspection ready. So it wasn't until two cycles into his shift that he finally secure-coded the door to his own work-station, by this time almost fantasizing about his online-recharge. Yes. Log onto your systems, sit in your chair, find your recharge cable, and…start sorting those tedious assays. He could do it. He'd feel better—at least able to stand without wobbling—once he had some recharge.

Except, as his door moved aside, he couldn't. Someone was in his chair. Someone large, and bronzy gold, sprawled on the too-small-for-him chair, hips pushed forward to the edge of the seat, head and arms thrown over the chair's rests, hyperventing in wanton abandon.

Between his long legs, Skywarp knelt, eyes closed, probing the other jet's valve with his black glossa. Starscream moved one of his long legs to drape over Skywarp's shoulder, the toes curling in time to Skywarp's licks.

Barricade shut the door, mouth agape. His eyes flew behind him, to see if anyone else had seen. No. If it were real, someone would have seen, or said, something. It must be…he must REALLY need that online recharge. He coded the door again, optics shut. Hallucination, he thought. WEIRD hallucination. Kind of hot, though. The door pushed aside again. He was ready to unshutter his optics and see proof of his under-charge—the empty chair, especially.

"OH!" Starscream shouted, his clawed hands curling around the arms of the chair, spine arching up. His turbines fired with arousal. His heel clanged against one of Skywarp's engines.

Oh frag. It was real. And this time others did look. Barricade bolted into the room and quickcoded the door closed, his capacitor thrumming with too much energy. Panic and arousal and confusion all at once. As he watched, one of Starscream's hands pressed Skywarp's mouth harder against his valve, as he moaned and writhed against the chair. Which creaked ominously. Moreso a moment later when Skywarp struggled up, reaching to kiss his Trine mate.

Starscream's hands traced the black jet's engine mounts, the long fingers exploring the longer reach of Skywarp's asymmetrical tailboom, as he cycled out of his overload. Starscream lolled his head languorously toward the door. "Oh, look, Skywarp. I think Barricade would like his seat back," he murmured, vaguely.

"Tell him," Skywarp said, his voice muffled in Starscream's collar armor, "we're busy."

At those words, Barricade got what this was about. This was his punishment for having to work. Skywarp blamed him for having to leave this morning. He couldn't help it. He had to accomplish his duties. He had to.

"Sorry," he said, shyly. "Just ignore me." He could find a way to get his work done. Skywarp had to understand that. He stepped around them, politely saying 'excuse me' as he stepped in between Skywarp's kneeling feet, and called up his monitor.

"No," Starscream insisted, "Allow me, Barricade." The jet pushed up from the chair, arms fast around Skywarp, and the two Seekers tumbled in a pile of limbs to the floor. Two pairs of wickedly barbed feet cut the air where Barricade had been standing, as he jumped across and onto his chair. Show no reaction, he told himself. Pay no attention. You have to get your work done. This was Skywarp's punishment—to distract him, arouse him. Well, he was certainly feeling punished. His valve was twisting on itself just remembering the sight of Skywarp's black glossa against Starscream's valve.

He found his recharge cable and plugged in. He tried to concentrate on enjoying his online recharge—it did help strengthen his resolve—but his attention kept drifting from the assays on his monitor screen to the two jets wrestling on the floor. He told himself it was all the flailing. Several times, legs had clanged against his chair support, breaking whatever small amount of concentration he had been able to build. To keep himself safe, he'd pulled his knees up against his grille.

"Ah!" Starscream crowed, rising up on his knees, the large angle of his reverse jointed legs stabilizing him as he straddled Skywarp's hips. "Now, you must suffer!" He dove on top of the black mech, who started flailing and making weird, half-frantic grunts. Was…Starscream tickling Skywarp? Was Skywarp ticklish? Barricade felt a pang of jealousy—he hadn't known that.

His monitor comm pinged him, but as he reached to answer it, one of Starscream's bronzy heels sliced the air. He snatched his hand back. He could…he could come up with some excuse. And they could always ping back if it were that important. He grabbed a datapad that had been attached to his chair—he could make his notes on that and input them into the console later.

"Unh!" Skywarp cried out—Starscream had wedged one leg between his Trine mate's thighs and was slowly trying to push his spike into Skywarp's valve. It was a fight—Skywarp clamping his thighs together, Starscream just as adamantly grinding his bodyweight forward into the valve. Barricade found his concentration ruptured for several kliks. He felt his spike lubricate in its housing, imagining the warm pressure of Skywarp's valve. Skywarp wouldn't fight him.

His monitor pinged him again, but this time, as he reached to key it, Starscream's entire body flew across his path, launched by Skywarp across the room. Starscream slammed against the wall with force hard enough to shake the entire room, the loud crash of his engines against the metal bulkhead startling Barricade so much he dropped the datapad. Skywarp followed, a half-klik later, grabbing the bronze jet by the wrist and spinning him around and shoving his chassis face first, bent over, onto Barricade's console. Skywarp held onto the wrist, snagging the other one, and folding them both behind Starscream's back, just below his engines, as he thrust into Starscream's valve. "Ha!" Skywarp crowed. "Who's in charge now?" With his free hand, he squeezed hard on Starscream's engine mounts, grinning at the bronze Seeker's loud moan.

"That would be my question." They registered the voice—in all the noise and ruckus, none of them had heard the door code open. Onslaught stood in the doorway, tapping impatiently on a datapad. "I commed you twice, Barricade." His visor took in the scene—the two Seekers still pounding at each other, Starscream's moans rising higher and higher in pitch.

"I'm sorry," Barricade said, sincerely, meekly. He gestured helplessly to his console. As if to illustrate his point, Skywarp swept one arm across the console, scattering input rods to the floor, with a roar, then lifting Starscream up by his pinioned arms and throwing him hard on the console, climbing up behind him, his spike still engaged. All of his bluster about showing Skywarp up and whoever comm'd him would just have to ping back, dissipated under Onslaught's cool gaze. "I, uh, I couldn't, uh, get to it."

Onslaught stood still for a moment—his battlemask hiding what must have been a fascinating series of expressions. "I shall, ahem, note that Skywarp is inspecting your workstation."

Barricade sagged gratefully into the chair.

"Onslaught," Skywarp acknowledged, with a friendly nod, pausing in his thrusts into his Trine mate. On the console, Starscream whined, twisting himself in frustrated arousal. "Been a long time."

"It has, hasn't it, Skywarp," Onslaught said, blandly. "Barricade, next time, wire your comm through your personal system." Barricade nodded, sheepishly. "And…watch out for Seekers. They'll mess you up."

"Oh," Starscream whimpered, in time to Skywarp's renewed thrusts, "That…is…unfair! We…treat…him…verywell!"

Onslaught shook his head. "I couldn't keep up with even one of you." He shot Barricade a worried look. "Just…don't break him."

Starscream's protest was drowned out by whimpers as Skywarp quickened his firm thrusts into his Trine mate. Onslaught nodded again at Skywarp, and coded the door closed as he left. Starscream howled into an overload—Barricade stared, fascinated, at the Seeker's foot, dangling off the edge of his console, trembling through his overload. Barricade squirmed in his chair. He could touch Starscream's foot with his own if he stretched it out. That close. He could smell the transfluid and lubricant and the smell of friction-heated oil. His heat sinks shuddered online.

Skywarp released his Trine mate's wrists and seized onto Starscream's engine mounts. Starscream squealed, half aroused and half in pain. "Not done with you," Skywarp growled. Barricade shivered. The Trine mates had always been rougher with each other than with him. He hadn't realized how much it turned him on. He found himself wondering if he'd enjoy more than just watching it. What would it feel like to have Skywarp haul him up by the shoulders like that? He shivered. In his imagination, it felt pretty good.

"You are done!" Starscream said, swinging one arm in a spinning turn, aimed at Skywarp's head. The black jet caught the arm, and used its momentum to swing Starscream's body across the room, his spike leaving the valve with an audible 'pop' that left both momentarily gasping.

Barricade answered a ping on his personal comm. Onslaught. "Can you tell those two idiots to keep it down? Some of us are trying to work."

"Uhh, I'll try?"

"You tell Skywarp if he doesn't shut up, I'll come there and shut him up. Got it?"

"Got it," Barricade squeaked to a dead comm line.

The two Seekers were gasping, letting their ventilation slow to a reasonable level: Skywarp, leaning against the console, Starscream sprawled on the floor.

"S—Skywarp?"

"Busy," Skywarp muttered.

"He is not speaking to you," Starscream explained, from the floor.

"Uhhh, okay. Message from Onslaught. He'd, ummm, really appreciate it if you could, you know, keep the noise down in here? He says it's a little distracting."

"I'll bet he'd appreciate it," Skywarp muttered. "I'll show him distracting."

Oh no. Barricade ducked in the chair as Skywarp launched himself on Starscream, who struggled onto his side. Skywarp seized one thigh and lifted it, straddling the other leg as he again drove his spike into Starscream's valve, the upraised leg caught in the crook of his elbow. Starscream cried out with every thrust, as if this hurt. Skywarp, over him, growling louder and louder until he overloaded with a roar that temporarily cut Barricade's audio.

This time he did hear the door code open. It was the first thing his audio registered as it came back online.

Onslaught, again. "You gave him my message."

Barricade nodded, earnestly. Well, he'd TRIED to.

Onslaught nodded. "Right. Have to take matters into my own hands. As usual." Barricade expected him to head over to the pile of quivering Seeker limbs on the floor. Instead, Onslaught marched straight over to Barricade's chair, hauling him out of it by one wrist. The online recharge plug popped out of the jack in Barricade's side, making him wince, staggering forward a few steps. Onslaught hopped into the chair and then tugged the numb Barricade back on top of him, Barricade's back against his chest, his wing fairings on either side of Onslaught's face.

Onslaught's hands were rough on Barricade's interface panel, but once he'd pried that open, the spike released itself, thick with clear lubricant. Onslaught grunted into Barricade's audio. "Punishing you, huh?" Barricade nodded, miserably, embarrassed that Onslaught could see his aroused state. Worse, and know what it was about. And worst, Onslaught slicked a mass of the lubricant off his spike, causing Barricade to moan in spite of himself. A moan that grew as Onslaught rubbed the lubricant over both of his hands and, while one hand began stroking the spike, the other circled the edge of Barricade's still-covered valve. The touch brought the image of Skywarp's glossa against Starscream's valve a little too vividly to Barricade's mind. With a click, his valve cover released, and those slick fingers began probing into his valve.

He struggled, vainly, to sit up, to wriggle off of Onslaught's lap, but the Combaticon commander pinned one of his wing fairings between his cheek and shoulder. His silver talons clutched the sides of the chair, his legs dangling helplessly from Onslaught's lap, pushed open by the larger mech's knees. He started shaking, half from desire, half from pure mortification.

"Relax," Onslaught ordered. Right. Like it was that easy. The commander's hand shifted around the spike, rotating each time it reached the top of the spike, where the most sensitive nodes were clustered. Barricade squealed, his hips jerking up each time, and each time, Onslaught used the motion to push into Barricade's valve.

Barricade was moaning wildly, writhing against Onslaught's chest, hot air venting from his systems against Onslaught's armored legs. "I can see why he likes you," Onslaught murmured. There was no desire in the voice, no lust. Only an objective assessment, as if weighing why a mission might choose an objective.

Barricade could feel an overload building across both of his systems. And suddenly, he saw Skywarp's face loom over his body. "Aggghhhh," he said. Actually, he meant to say something meaningful, but the ability to make consonants, much less sense, left him with each rotating stroke of Onslaught's hand.

A black armored hand pinned Onslaught's wrist against Barricade's side. His eyes blazed red. "MINE," Skywarp snarled.

"Is he?" Onslaught wiggled his fingers around the spike, contacting several nodes. Barricade yelped as the sensors overcharged, aching for more contact.

Skywarp's other arm pressed heavily down on the arm of the chair, causing it to creak again. "Yes. Mine." He looked terrifying. Barricade's vents picked up in speed, feeling a twinge of fear and shame—that Onslaught had gotten this reaction from him. That he had been enjoying it.

Onslaught pushed up with his wrist—Skywarp released his hand. Onslaught casually resumed stroking Barricade's spike. Barricade's eyes were glued to Skywarp's face, trying to read his expression, as the tide of desire swept up over him again.

He could feel Skywarp's breath—hot exvents across his chassis, on his exposed spike and valve. Barricade squirmed, trying to pry Onslaught's hands off him, but he found his arms pinned to the chair by Skywarp's large black talons. The jet stared down at him, optics spiralled wide, almost defying him to overload.

His breath grew ragged, his optics unblinking, pushing his weight into Onslaught, almost as if trying to shrink into the mech beneath him. His whole frame went rigid. Finally, his systems overrode everything—his fear, his worry, his embarrassment—and a doubled overload tore through his systems. Even then he dared not close his eyes, as if afraid of Skywarp disappearing. He felt the hot rush of transfluid from his spike, the swirling grip of his valve against Onslaught's intruding fingers, but above those, above both of those, he felt Skywarp's unreadably terrifying stare.

"You know something, Skywarp?" Onslaught said, impassively, "You could just request him as your assistant." Skywarp blinked, and the terror of the moment vanished. Onslaught lifted his hand off Barricade's spike. Skywarp bent over as though this were some long-practiced ritual between them and began licking Barricade's lubricant and transfluid from Onslaught's fingers.

"I could, couldn't I?" Skywarp bent down, and placed a light kiss across Barricade's panting mouth, then pocking a trail of kisses down his still-heaving chassis to his trembling spike. "You always had the best ideas, Onslaught." Barricade writhed in something like jealousy of their easy familiarity.

Barricade quivered as Skywarp licked his glossa up the length of his spike, and then bent to give him another kiss. "You," Skywarp said, his voice husky, "were ridiculously cute, little spike." He looked up at Onslaught. "I'm going to go get Starscream. Think he passed out." Skywarp grinned, ebulliently, bouncing off. As if the last cycle hadn't happened at all.

Onslaught pinned Barricade's audio to his battlemask with his other hand, still sticky with fluid from Barricade's valve. "Don't be jealous," Onslaught whispered. "My time's past. Just remember—Seekers don't think straight when their emotions get involved. Get used to solving problems before they arise." And Barricade felt something he would have sworn was the soft, warm, satiny presence of a glossa curling around his audio, into his throat. And then it was gone.


	7. Rough

_A/N Warnings for a little rough sex, but it's not dub/con. Oh, angst at the end there. Just in case you… you know, might not catch it the first time. _

Barricade tilted his head back, enjoying the warm rain of dilute cleanser from the ceiling nozzles in the maintenance bay's washrack. The cleanser stung, just a little, as it worked under dried and gummy exterior joint lubricant. He'd probably have to do a full body oil. Oh, no. That would be just dreadful, all that warm oil…he purred.

Skywarp and Starscream had been gone for an entire solar—some mysterious Seeker business, probably. Barricade wanted to make sure he looked—and smelled—decent for their return. Only one solar, and already he was feeling frisky. And a little lonely.

He should be back soon, Barricade told himself. Just enough time to get properly clean, maybe even clean your recharge station a bit. And…well, he'd let Skywarp decide from there. As long as it included him, he didn't mind.

He reached behind his shoulder, directing the high-pressure hose into the tires mounted above his shoulders. He sighed with pleasure. That always felt good. He let the hose drift to his wing fairings behind his neck with another ex-vent of pure pleasure. Normally washrack time was a hurried affair for him—get in, get out, get back to work, or back to his recharge without having to talk to anyone. But he missed Skywarp. The hose's pressure was no substitute for Skywarp's touch, but it was still a new thing for him to think of physical contact as a pleasure.

He checked his internal chrono. He should probably go, if he wanted to oil and clean his recharge station. With a third sigh, reluctant this time, he shut off the hose and hung it back in its mount. He stood for a moment longer, rotating his tires under the fall of cleanser from the ceiling.

The next thing he knew, the cold steel of the wall was hard against his cheek and chassis, one arm twisted painfully up behind his back, the upper tire grating against the wall. An arm was strong behind his neck. A voice murmured in his audio.

"If you say 'stop', I will stop. Do you understand?"

Barricade blinked, trying to place the voice. It sounded familiar. Like he should know. But…he thought these days were over. Seems not. In the Seeker's absence, he was just as vulnerable as before. His fault for daring to enjoy the wash. Should have known better.

The hand shoved at his shoulder. "Do you understand?"

"Y-yes." He shifted his weight. His attacker was larger than he was, but maybe he could get a good kick in. His arm tire's rubber skidded on the wet wall as he tried to free his trapped wrist. To turn. To see, at least, who would rape him this time. He didn't know why he cared. But he wanted to know. "Who--?"

The hand torqued his wrist hard enough that the rim bent on his wrist tire. "I didn't say you could ask questions, Barricade, did I?"

"No!" he gasped. "I just—"

"Unless you say 'stop', I continue." A pause. Barricade started trembling. What was going on? Why didn't he just get it over with? Why this pretense? The voice continued. "Skywarp said you wanted to try it rough. He doesn't trust himself not to hurt you."

"So…he…?" Trying to comprehend.

"Did I say you could ask questions?" The voice, impatient. Barricade was kliks away from placing it. So familiar.

"No," he said, meekly.

"Good, Barricade. Now, relax."

That was the word that did it for him—snapped to his recollection who it was. Onslaught. ONSLAUGHT?! He quivered. The hand left the back of his shoulders, tweaking one of his wing fairings and traveling down his torso. He remembered a little too vividly the last meeting with Onslaught—sprawled over the APC's large frame, Onslaught's hands maddeningly skilled on his interface equipment. In spite of himself, he moaned into the wall.

"The harder you fight, the harder I fight. You understand? You can make this as hard core as you want."

"Yes," he whispered, twitching as the large hand reached and unfastened the catch of his interface panel.

"Good," Onslaught breathed. He caught the manual release of the spike cover with one finger, snapping it open. Barricade whimpered as the cleanser dripping from his chassis stung his spike. Onslaught spread his hand over Barricade's crotch, managing to brush the valve cover, squeezing the base of the spike between the join of two of his fingers.

The mass behind him shifted. A little of the pressure eased on his twisted arm while the hand on his interface equipment tilted his pelvic frame back. Onslaught murmured again in his audio, "Say 'stop' and I will." Barricade shivered, as if the cleanser had suddenly gone cold. His whole frame jerked as he felt Onslaught's spike push into his valve. The larger mech paused, letting Barricade tremble at the sudden contact, his lubricant thick and warm against Barricade's valve.

Both hands released him, running down around his body, his armored thighs, the smaller fairings of his hips. His one hand, from having been twisted behind his back, throbbed and was sluggish. He kept his cheek pressed to the wall, optics closed, his ventilation coming in short hot bursts that tasted a bit like fear. But not entirely.

Onslaught shifted inside him, beginning to thrust deeper into the valve, moving one hand to squeeze the sensitive mounts of his wing fairings. He whimpered, hands pressing against the wall, protesting…what? Torn between wanting this and not wanting this. Torn between desire and trust, and memory.

Onslaught wrapped one arm over his shoulder, pulling him off the wall, arching his central dorsal line over his larger chassis. Barricade gasped, the move changing the pressure nodes hit by the spike as Onslaught continued to thrust. He heard Onslaught's ventilation hard in his audio, rasping, as if fighting for control. He felt his feet hauled off the ground as Onslaught wrapped his other arm around Barricade's narrower waist, crushing the smaller mech against him. Barricade squirmed, his talons coming up to grab at Onslaught's powerful arm, but even then, he didn't have force enough to shift it. Afraid of being hurt? Or afraid of Onslaught stopping? He didn't know. He didn't want to have to know. He was suspended for a long moment in this strange sensation: wanting/fearing, feeling/knowing, trapped/released.

"Now," Onslaught murmured in his ear, like an order. And somehow, somehow, his systems obeyed, throwing him from his moment of suspension into an overload that tore a loud cry from his vocalizer, his hands clutching wildly behind him, clawing at Onslaught's armored arms. Onslaught grunted, once, and Barricade felt a wash of fluid in his valve. He moaned, feeling something nuzzle between his wing fairings.

"Good," Onslaught muttered. "Trust me now?"

"Y-yes."

"Want it rougher?"

He froze. He didn't know. Onslaught replaced him gently on the ground, still keeping his spike lodged in the smaller mech's valve.

"The word," Onslaught said, patiently, "is 'stop'." He paused for a beat. When Barricade didn't move, he swept Barricade's feet out from under him, dropping him heavily onto his knees and palms he barely managed to throw out to break his fall. The impact jarred his shoulders, his head, blanking his optics for a moment. He twisted, experimentally. Onslaught reached for his arms again. Barricade pushed his feet against Onslaught's thighs—the mech had knelt down the ground behind him—twisting, swinging one hand balled into a fist at Onslaught's head—the weight of the tire adding heft to the swing.

The blow caught Onslaught on the shoulder. Barricade froze, for a klik, a little afraid of the retribution. He tried to scramble away, the cleanser slicking the floor with the lubricant and transfluid, causing his feet to lose traction. He fell onto his back, legs curled, ready to kick. "Get away!" he yelled.

Onslaught shook his head, patiently. "That is not the right way to make me stop, Barricade." He lunged forward, grabbing one of Barricade's ankles, hauling him back across the floor, dodging the kicks with the other foot easily. He pinned one leg with a knee on the inner thigh, compressing the control cabling and effectively cutting mobility to that leg. He looked down at Barricade for a long moment, his optics, behind their visor, raking over his exposed interface equipment, the spike fully extended in testimony of Barricade's arousal. Barricade tried to squirm onto his side, his talons covering his spike. Onslaught caught his hands, pushing them away roughly.

The commander swung his other leg across Barricade's hip, and before Barricade could register what was happening, sank Barricade's spike into his valve. Onslaught's optics flickered for a klik, and he exvented what sounded like a sigh. He bent over Barricade, swatting Barricade's swinging arms aside as if they were harmless. "You have thirty kliks," he said, his battlemask impassive, his eyes boring into Barricade's. "Thirty. Better make them count."

Thirty? To do what? As if to give him a hint, Onslaught ground his hips against Barricade's. His spike responded with another push of lubricant. "Twenty-eight." Onslaught raised his hips off of Barricade's, directing the smaller mech's hips. Barricade found himself driving his spike upward, into the valve, trying to brace his heels on the slippery floor to give him leverage, his hands clamped to Onslaught's hips by the larger mech's hands.

Onslaught's optics dimmed, head tilted back, and against the warm fall of cleanser still raining from the ceiling Barricade could feel hot panting exvents across his chassis. Barricade felt an overload building along his spike's systems. It wasn't Skywarp, but..Skywarp sent him. Skywarp had…had him in the past. Just that common bond—that this had also been touched by, wanted by, Skywarp, transferred a sort of desirability to Onslaught. Close and almost there and….

Onslaught pushed himself off Barricade's spike. "Time's up." Barricade lay for a moment, panting, gnashing his denta in frustration. Onslaught grabbed Barricade roughly by one of his upper tires, moving to flip him over onto his belly.

Barricade struck out, kicking Onslaught square in the chest, pushing off, and scrambling across the room. Before he could make the exit, Onslaught caught at his wrist, swinging him around and into the hard wall again, this time with force enough to white his sensornet for a second. He slid down the wall to the floor. Onslaught grabbed him by an ankle and a wrist to haul him away from the corner. Barricade squealed, raking his claws down Onslaught's chassis, scoring the paint, gritting his jaw in satisfaction as Onslaught gasped in pain.

Onslaught snatched his hands, squeezing the wrist tires hard enough to send redline alarms to his main systems monitor. "Play as rough as you want," he growled. He threw the wrists down, Barricade's torso following through the movement. Barricade felt a broad hand push his shoulders into the floor, his arms pinned under his chassis, while the other hand thrust his legs apart. He felt Onslaught's spike take him.

Primus, it felt…good. Fear blending with desire; pain throwing the pleasure into relief like a color complement. This wasn't like before. Part of his spark clung to the knowledge—an absolute sure certain knowledge—that if he did say 'stop,' Onslaught would freeze. He was helpless, but somehow, he still had control, and the paradox was wreaking hell with his overload systems.

One leg was caught at the knee, wrapped around Onslaught's hip, while the commander's hand lightened the pressure across Barricade's shoulders to twist at one of his wing fairings. Barricade cried out, the sound fading to a moan. Above him, Onslaught grunted, fierce sounds like "Kah!" with every thrust, his eyes unplaceable behind his visor.

Barricade shrieked, as Onslaught jerked hard on his wing fairing, the sudden pain causing him to lose control of his sensornet, skittering a diamond-hard overload across his system. He was one small parcel of wanting, and the pain and a rush of release and the dull thumping pressure of Onslaught's pelvic frame against his valve were the boundaries of his world, the only known fixed points. He felt himself thrash in response to Onslaught's own overload, the larger mech stopping to stroke soothing hands down Barricade's spasming central line. And he felt, and saw, a large black shape, like a shadow, rise up from behind him, and swallow up Onslaught before it swallowed him up as well.

*****  
"Barricade?" Skywarp's voice was as gentle as warm cleanser in his audio. Beyond it he could hear the sound of rain from the ceiling taps. Barricade felt his optics online, and with an effort, turned his head to face the large shadow over him. Skywarp knelt over him, the broad spread of his torso blocking most of the cleanser-fall, looking down at him, red optics pinpointed in worry. "I'm sorry, spike. I thought…"

"No," Barricade said, groggily, turning onto his back, almost surprised not to feel Onslaught's heavy hand pressing him down again. "Don't be sorry."

"I—I thought you would like it."

Barricade smiled. "Did. Not very often,but…." He could feel Onslaught's hand on his shoulder, pinning him down, hear the soft, dispassionate voice. He shivered at the memory.

"I couldn't watch anymore," Skywarp said, miserably. "He looked like he was hurting you."

"Wasn't hurting me."

"Little spike, you were screaming." His voice tentative, as if not really wanting to disagree. He ducked in and brushed his mouth over Barricade's—as if afraid to push him too far. Barricade curled his arms behind Skywarp's neck and pulled him down into a long and proper kiss that left the black jet growling with desire. Barricade stopped himself, realizing it was the most aggressive thing he'd done to Skywarp. Normally he barely dared to touch him. He pulled back.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"Barricade," Skywarp said, shifting to lay next to him on the floor of the washrack, dropping his head to brush against the white armor of Barricade's upper arm. "I-I can't do that to you. I can't hurt you. Like…you…need." He turned his face away, staring at a swirl of silvery transfluid getting washed away by the falling cleanser, before his eyelids shuttered hard.

Barricade pushed himself up. "Don't need it." He brushed his talons down Skywarp's broad jaw.

"Starscream does. I can't even do that to him as hard as he wants." Skywarp's voice was thick with failure, his optics staunchly shut.

"'M not Starscream," Barricade said, petulantly. "And," he shuttered the larger two of his optics, bracing himself to say this, "Need you more than anything." He felt himself cringe down, as if trying to create distance between himself and the raw, honest words.

Skywarp bowed his head. "But I will hurt you. Just not how you want."

"I-I'm willing to…let that happen," he whispered, the pronoun coming hard to his vocalizer. I? Who am I? How dare I say or claim anything? I am nothing. I am the spikerag of every mech on the ship. No. I was. Now I am not. Something different, something more. Because of….

Skywarp looked up, his optics unshuttered. The irises spiralled wide, huge, so large that he could see tiny flaws in the lenses, sparkling like little jewels. "Maybe I'm not," he whispered, "But I'm beginning to think I'm not in as much control as I ever thought I was."


	8. Tribunal

_A/N Written 'out of order' but this is where it would insert into the chronology--for a rare_pairing prompt "no shame in this". Yes, I should suck less about updating. How's about Wednesdays are Sky/Ground days? _

Barricade's whole frame shook with rage as the priority message scrolled across his HUD. He was being called up for a tribunal. By Soundwave. That was bad enough, but the charges…! Gross incompetence. Misfiled reports. Altered data. Barricade was far from the perfect soldier, but he knew his job and did it well. And knowing what this was really about only made him madder. He felt as if someone had poured battery acid on his spark chamber. This was about Skywarp. A chance to get to the Seeker through Barricade.

"What's up, little spike?" Skywarp asked. He wriggled down the berth, rolling off onto one side, propping himself on an elbow. "You got all tense all of a sudden."

"'M fine," he mumbled. He was not going to let Soundwave win. He'd find a way. And the last thing he wanted to do was upset Skywarp. He could handle himself. He could try. He didn't want Skywarp to have to run to his rescue.

"I know you're fine, little spike," Skywarp said, his voice sultry. He ran his long talons down Barricade's side. "Finer, even." His optics spiraled wide with pleasure. That reaction—that simple, entirely involuntary response to looking at Barricade—did more for the smaller mech than Skywarp would ever realize. Barricade had no delusion that he was attractive, and someone who wanted to look at him, who was pleased by his…anything, was something he'd never had before. Skywarp's lids lowered briefly in concern. "Didn't squish you or anything, did I?"

Barricade hooked his talons under Skywarp's rib struts, pulling him back over, a little surprised at his own temerity. His rage at Soundwave was making him bold and protective. "No," he said, firmly. He loved feeling the weight of the larger mech on top of him, loved the light vibration of the jet's engine through his dermal plating, loved feeling somehow…surrounded by Skywarp's larger frame. Skywarp laughed, sending another river of vibration across the metal of their bodies, as he settled himself back on top of the smaller mech.

"I can't believe you like this," he said. "Not that I'm complaining. Just that even Starscream complains about, you know, getting poked in awkward places."

"Not Starscream," Barricade said, wriggling his shoulders against the berth.

Skywarp pushed off his upper body, looking down, grinning. "I know that, little spike. Trust me." He scooped Barricade up and against him, pulling him into a kiss. "I know you're not Starscream."

Barricade wrapped his arms around Skywarp's shoulders, opening his mouth, inviting Skywarp's glossa. He only partially shuttered his optics, watching Skywarp surreptitiously, the way the light from his optics seeped through his lids, highlighting his cheekflares, casting a subdued warmth on Barricade's dermal plating. He pushed aside the yellow message and all of its baggage and surrendered to this moment, shifting his body as if trying to press himself into Skywarp. He felt his interface systems cycle on, his spike lubricate in its housing. He'd already interfaced with the black jet earlier, but he wanted to, again. As if he could never get enough.

Skywarp read, or intuited, the meaning behind Barricade's squirm, the soft whimper. He broke the kiss gently. "You want me?"

"Always," Barricade said, wincing at how corny it sounded, and how true it was. He waited for Skywarp's smile to take on a teasing edge, but the black jet simply pushed his way down Barricade's body, trailing kisses along his ventral line, his red optics fixed on Barricade's face. Barricade thought that he had never seen anything so amazingly hot.

Skywarp flicked open Barricade's interface hatch, licking the inside of the hatch's panel as he moved it aside. Barricade squirmed, squeezing down on his spike cover, trying not to appear as desperately eager as he was. Skywarp's warm mouth—his glossa and the exvents from his air-cooling system, sent tingles of raw sensation over Barricade's system, as he licked the rim of the spike cover and then the valve cover, and back.

Barricade's talons clawed at the berth. Skywarp flattened his hips with one hand, as his mouth moved, his lips brushing the valve cover. Barricade gasped as his valve cover retracted, the room's air striking the protected lining and rim. He quivered as Skywarp licked the rim, circling around and dipping in the lining, seeking out the sensor nodes. He felt his valve mechanism shift, trying to cinch down on a spike that wasn't there. Skywarp laughed, softly, stabbing his glossa into the valve's depths, then flicking around the rim, while Barricade writhed, his vents coming in ragged bursts as an overload lunged closer.

"Please," he squirmed, "want you!"

Skywarp paused. "Always," he said, only half-teasing. Instead of giving Barricade what his sensor net was screaming out for, he shifted his attention to the spike cover. It didn't take much attention for the spike cover to snap back, the pressurizing spike slicking itself with lubricant. Skywarp licked his way up the spike, pausing at the top to make eye contact with Barricade.

Barricade reached for him, desperately, his eyes begging.

Skywarp relented, moving forward, locking himself in a kiss with the smaller mech as he gathered himself up, releasing his own interface panel before he broke the kiss and settled himself down across Barricade's narrow hips.

Skywarp groaned, tipping his head back into the sensation, feeling Barricade tremble, almost vibrate, beneath him, inside him. "So good," he murmured, hanging for a long moment before beginning to shift his hips, slowly, against Barricade's body. "Secret," he whispered, leaning down over Barricade, one arm braced by the smaller mech's head. "I want you, too. Always."

Barricade whimpered at his words as much as the delicious sensation of his valve squeezing and sliding against his spike. He held his hands up, reaching for Skywarp's face, inviting him to pin his wrists. Skywarp paused, kissing his talons, before pushing Barricade's arms to the sides, pressing his weight upon Barricade's wrist-tires. Barricade's dorsal line arched off the berth, his head tossing side to side as the overload built in him again, the stimulus slowly switching over from his valve systems to his spike.

The systems switched over all at once and the overload tore through him like a thunderstorm, his sensornet flaring and crackling. His body went rigid, arched off the berth. Above him, Skywarp panted, the three quick, sharp pants he always gave as he overloaded, his valve clamping down on Barricade's spike as though it would never let go.

Skywarp collapsed on top of him, his dermal plating hot to the touch. "Sorry," he murmured. "Should move."

"No," Barricade said, fiercely, turning his hands to clutch at Skywarp's. He could feel last, latent thrums of the overload against his spike. The yellow message indicator still blinked in the corner of his HUD, but that was a worry for later. Right now, he had everything he wanted.

*****

"This tribunal," Soundwave said, officiously, "Is for gross negligence. Further charges, such as deliberate sedition or sabotage, may follow."

Barricade felt his capacitor stall. His talons shook with repressed fury as he forced himself to stand, stolidly, in front of the table. The tribunal itself had yet to be embodied: any mech with rank was gathered in the crowd behind him.

He knew he didn't deserve this, and they knew it too. But how many would challenge Soundwave's obvious desire for him? He did not, pragmatically speaking, have much hope. He'd spotted Starscream in the crowd, frowning, his arms folded over his chassis. Skywarp had been called away to a nearby orbital platform: oh yes, Soundwave had planned things well. By the time Skywarp returned, Barricade would be buried in the brig. Skywarp's diplomatic immunity extended only to himself, and only so far.

Just as well, Barricade thought, that he disappear. Skywarp could do without him. Easily. Just go cleanly, he told himself. Without taking him down with you.

"The accused has been summoned here to answer charges of misfiled reports, falsified information, blank reports, and other gross negligence including not being at his post during dutycycle."

Barricade felt a white heat in his central core. He would fight this, even if alone. He would probably lose, but he would fight. Soundwave had to have in mind who he wanted on the tribunal itself, so the chances of a fair hearing were…zero. Starscream might rage, but he wasn't on that list. Soundwave would pick mechs he knew would be afraid to do anything other than convict him.

Soundwave turned to him. "Before we read the detailed charges, does the accused have anything he wishes to say for himself?"

Trick question. Barricade had been here before, how many times? Not in tribunals—one thing no one had ever dared question was his performance. But he knew this set up from other scenarios: he could hear the echoes already in his audio—'like this, don't you?' 'Tell me you like it and I'll stop'. Those had only been after him, though—using his frame or his pain and fear to get off. This was…about Skywarp and about a different kind of power.

Just like all those times, pinned down, gasping in pain, he kept his silence, his optics hard on Soundwave. He would not give him the satisfaction of playing along. The only reason he was even here was that he knew the regulations: refusal to show up for a tribunal carried an automatic deactivation penalty. He was not going to go out that easily.

Soundwave smirked as though that were just the answer he was hoping for.

"Fine. We shall read the charges and then assemble the panel." He raised his optics. "Every command-mech in the room is eligible for the panel. It is your duty to listen attentively to the charges. And then the evidence."

"Will the accused have a chance to answer these outrageous charges?" Starscream asked, acidly.

"We shall follow protocol," Soundwave replied, blandly. "Though I believe the evidence speaks for itself."

"I rather suspect you shall speak for the evidence," Starscream retorted. "Since you have fabrica—I am sorry, _discovered_ it." Barricade risked a look over his shoulder. The bronze jet leaned insolently against the wall, arms folded, talons flicking the barrels of his chain guns, optic shutters half-lowered. Deliberately insolent. Deliberately riling up Soundwave. Barricade tried to shake his head. Starscream didn't need any more trouble with Soundwave. And not for Barricade's sake.

"The accused will have a chance to present a defense," Soundwave said, dismissively, as if to say 'what did it matter?' He would allow a few cycles of so-called 'defense', knowing that the end result was not in question. He would probably, Barricade thought, enjoy the spectacle of Barricade's pitiful, desperate dancing for his life. Barricade was not sure he was willing to give Soundwave that much pleasure. Humiliate himself for no purpose or go out with some pride?

"And how much time will the accused have to prepare his defense?" Starscream continued.

"He has had enough time to prepare his defense. He was notified of this hearing six cycles ago." A murmur among the mechs behind Barricade. Some of them, slowly, reaching the awareness that what Soundwave was doing to him he could just as easily do to them in the future. None of them (well, not many of them) were stupid—they saw the danger. How easily they could be next. Even the mechs not known for tactical smarts felt twinges along their survival instincts. But none, yet, dared say anything.

"Now," Soundwave said. "Any more needless delays?"

"I cannot imagine," Starscream drawled, "that informing potential tribunal members of the procedure is a 'needless' delay."

"You have made your point quite clear, Air Commander," Soundwave said. "I should like to begin the reading of the evidence into record." He glared at Barricade, who stood immobile. He was refusing to play his proper role of scared-little-mech. He could fight this, somehow. Right now, though, all he could think through his anger was not to give in to the role Soundwave wanted him to play. He did have his pride. Not with Skywarp, but with Soundwave, he did.

Soundwave began a recitation of his 'evidence', which was, as Barricade had suspected, completely falsified. He'd be able to refute every last charge if he were allowed to go to his work cube and pull his secured backups. But he knew that was…not likely to happen. So he did all he could to simply stand there, trying to feign calmness, while inside he vibrated with outrage and frustration. He should have seen this coming. Should have known, somehow, that this was likely. Skywarp was vulnerable through him—they both knew that—and Barricade should have taken precautions. Stored backups offsite. Triple logged. Used better encryption. A thousand ideas of what he should have done flooded his processor, drowning out the tedious litany.

Soundwave had really stacked up a wall of charges against him. If he really were this incompetent, Barricade mused, it would probably reflect badly on Soundwave that he'd gotten away with it for this long. Soundwave wasn't thinking of that, but he could tell from the shuffling of the mechs behind him that some of them were.

"Now," Soundwave finally said, ruffling his solar panels. "You have heard the charges against the mech, personal designation: Barricade. We shall empanel the tribunal and then give him a chance to summon some sort of defense." He nodded condescendingly at Starscream, "Since some of you feel he needs more time to prepare himself."

"As Air Commander," Starscream said, "I have a right to be on this panel."

Soundwave's supraorbital ridges raised. "Always grasping after power, aren't you, Starscream?"

"When I see it is being mishandled, yes." Naked aggression in his voice. Barricade wanted to warn Starscream, tell him to back down. But he couldn't think of a way that wouldn't get the jet dragged into this: Barricade could so easily see Soundwave trumping up the Air Commander as an accomplice or co-conspirator to the crimes of which Barricade stood accused.

"We shall discuss your…misaligned attitude towards my leadership at a later date, Starscream," Soundwave said, breezily.

Starscream laughed. "Certainly. I have taken up…just enough of your time today."

Barricade heard the door cycle open behind him. "A tribunal? And you didn't invite me?" Skywarp's baritone voice sent a tremor of recognition through Barricade. He was torn between surprise and worry—now Skywarp himself was within Soundwave's sights. "I demand, as the agent of the Inspector General, to serve on this tribunal."

Soundwave gawped for a long moment. Skywarp used the time to sweep into the front of the room, bringing with him a blast of cold air, approaching close enough to Soundwave for the satellite mech to truly feel the difference in their size.

Soundwave's solar panels riffled, belying his tension. "You of all mechs must recuse yourself from this matter, Skywarp."

"On what grounds?" Skywarp edged closer, looking down the length of his chassis at Soundwave. Soundwave craned his neck up, frowning.

"On the grounds that you are engaged in an improperly intimate relationship with the accused." Soundwave jutted forth his lower mandible.

Barricade flinched. That was the dart to get at Skywarp. He should have known—Soundwave didn't really care about hurting him to hurt Skywarp. Not when he could directly attack Skywarp's own credibility. Take down the IG's agent directly by undermining him. He waited for Skywarp to break, to show some sign of distress or frustration at least.

Skywarp grinned. "Clarify the point for me, please?"

"It should not need clarifying. You have interfaced with Barricade. Your objectivity has been compromised."

Everything Barricade had worried about raced through his mind—that he'd be seen as more than just a little diversion, but a perversion, a liability. Skywarp would hate him for this. For ruining his mission. For ruining his reputation. He ached for what Skywarp must be feeling, what he was losing here in front of every command mech on the Nemesis. He lowered his optics to his talons, knotted together in front of him.

"Commander Soundwave," Skywarp said, his tone taking on a knife-keen edge. Barricade looked up. "I am, of course, not well-versed in the protocols practiced on such a…parochial ship. You mean that anyone who has interfaced with Barricade is unfit to serve on this tribunal?"

"Yes," Soundwave said, triumphantly. "Precisely. Which eliminates your Trine mate's candidacy as well."

"Interface only?" Starscream said. "Hypothetically, what if I had merely performed, say, frottage? Onanism?" Barricade felt his cheek plates heat. Starscream and 'shame' really did not coexist in the same plane.

Soundwave smirked. "I should go so far as to say any sexual contact with Barricade."

"Count me out, then," Onslaught's voice was confident. Barricade's head drooped lower. Onslaught cleared his vocalizer.

"Any sexual contact?" Vortex said, unhappily. "Me, too, then." Barricade's cortex flashed him an image from what he'd started thinking of as his Old Life—pre-Skywarp. Vortex and Brawl together in the hallway outside the refectory. He'd howled until they'd knocked him off line.

"Yeah," Brawl said. "Guess I can't do your thingie." He did not sound sorry at all.

After Brawl, the chorus of voices rose, every mech claiming to have had some sexual contact with him. Even Bombshock, who had never so much as given Barricade a greasy optic in the washracks. Which was, Barricade slowly realized, Skywarp's whole point. They knew that if they played along with Soundwave now, it was a matter of time before the same game was played against them. Skywarp had given them a way out. And like the true opportunists Decepticons were, they snatched at it.

Regardless what it did to Barricade's dignity.

"I have taken a tally," Starscream said, coolly. "There appears to be no one qualified to sit on your august panel. Protocol requires that all charges be dismissed."

Onslaught muttered darkly—but loudly—about having better uses of his time and clomped to the door, signaling a general exodus.

Starscream approached Barricade, laying one hand on his shoulder, talons splayed around his tire fairing. "It was necessary, Barricade," he said, softly, over the last of the departing footsteps.

"Ho-how did he get back here?" Skywarp continued to stare down at Soundwave, his mouth tight, optics small. Soundwave's panels and nodes twitched, betraying his agitation at his plan fallen apart in front of him. Barricade ached—Skywarp would not even look at him. Couldn't bear to—why would he, after hearing the declarations of just about every mech on the ship? Barricade felt filthy all over again. Skywarp would never want to touch him.

"Trine link. As soon as I heard, I contacted him." A small reproach in his voice—that Barricade didn't tell him himself.

"You stalled Soundwave until he could get back." He kept his processor working, trying to push aside the feeling of uncleanness—a mountain of smudged memories crashing down upon him.

"I had to…improvise. Fortunately, it is not difficult for me to find ways to irk Soundwave." He could hear the jet's smile. The talons rubbed over his shoulder, soothingly.

"He hates me," Barricade whispered.

"He does not."

Barricade's shoulder twitched, trying to dislodge the bronze jet's talons. "'M disgusting."

"A word of advice for you," Starscream squatted down, his mouth near Barricade's audio. "It is generally unwise to tell Skywarp how he feels about anything. He feels completely competent making such judgments himself." Starscream pushed back to his feet. "Skywarp," he said. "I suspect that Onslaught had the correct sentiment: we have much better uses of our time." He nodded cordially at Soundwave, and headed toward the door, guiding Barricade in front of him in an obvious show of protection.

With one final, dark glare at Soundwave, Skywarp joined them. As soon as the door coded closed, he dropped to his knees, throwing his arms around Barricade. "Should have told me, little spike."

"Didn't want you to know." Barricade wasn't sure if he meant tell him about the tribunal or that he'd been the transfluid-receptacle of choice for the Nemesis. Didn't matter: his response would be the same. He was rigid in Skywarp's arms.

Skywarp pushed back, tilting his head. "Mad at me?" Barricade shook his head, dropping his main optics, though his smaller set he kept focused on the black jet. Mad at myself. Didn't try harder—should have tried harder. Both in there and earlier. No. Once again, I was just going to let it happen. Not fight, not even for Skywarp.

"I had to work fast. I'm sorry, little spike. It was ugly, but I couldn't think of any other way."

"If you would have told us sooner," Starscream admonished. He had dropped back, blocking the door in case Soundwave exited. "We might have strategized something more subtle."

"Not the time, Starscream," Skywarp tossed over his shoulder. His hands reached for Barricade's shoulders, his thumbs brushing the upper tires. "I'm sorry, little spike. I couldn't think of another way to shut him down. He was trying to hurt you."

"I know," Barricade muttered. "Not your fault it's true."

The talons tightened around his shoulders. "Not yours, either. There's no shame in this, little spike. Not for you. Not from me." Skywarp leaned forward, his long talons reaching to tilt Barricade's face toward his as he kissed him. Barricade stayed rigid for a long moment, the burning heat of his humiliation racing through his system, but the fire from that cooled at the gentleness of Skywarp's lips, still chilled from his flight.

How far had he gotten before Starscream had recalled him? How fast had he flown? To return, for you? You have no right to be upset—he was doing his best to save you. That is what matters. That he cared at all, but more than that, that he cared enough to face off with Soundwave for you. No one has ever done that for you, Barricade. No one.

Barricade softened in Skywarp's arms, his own hands coming up to cup Skywarp's elbows.

"Secret," Skywarp whispered, breaking the kiss. "I want you." A teasing lick down one of Barricade's chromed facial plates. "You want me?"

Barricade's hands tightened, his talons slipping between the armor plates of the larger mech. "Always," he said.


	9. Vulnus

_A/N: Just some angst for you. :(_

VULNUS  
It wouldn't stop. It seemed like it would never stop. Like it had been going on forever, this awful thing. A messy blur of taunting faces, glittering red optics, hard hands, pinches and scratches and pokes, his valve almost numb with pain as they took their turns with him, sensors overcharged, shorted out. Unending. It would never end. Ever. He heard the sound of his own core fluid racing past his subvoc audio receptors, cold static that made their mocking words seem somehow far away but at the same time closer, like they were the voices in his own mind. Weakling, Spiketoy. Slut. Joking about how he liked it when it hurt too much or he was too weak to fight back.

The worst wasn't the pain. The worst was the helplessness, the distance from his own audio, his own body, the lack of control: servos overstrained from long resistance, worn past his daily charge, or, on a few occasions, forcibly discharged to near catalepsy, where all he could do was witness. Hear, but dimly. Feel, but faintly. Fight back, but feebly. Scream, but powerlessly.

A sound jerked him out of recharge. Only when he felt the dying vibrations in his vocalizer did he realize the sound was a scream and the scream was his. He felt his core fluid race, dulling his audio.

A touch on his shoulder. He whirled, throwing out his spoke weapon, pushing to a low crouch.

The hand drew back. Large, worry-tilted red optics. "Little—Barricade?" Skywarp said, hesitantly.

Barricade resheathed his spoke weapon, abashed. "Sorry," he said, miserably.

"Don't apologize." The hand came near again, risking a feather's touch at the white armor of his upper arm. "Bad memory purge." Less a question than a reaching out for contact, just like with the hand. And just as fearful of rebuff.

"Yeah." He dropped to his knees, silver talons flashing helplessly on his lap in the dim light. He allowed the touch, but for once didn't enjoy it. Instead it brought a flood of dark memories, of other touches, other hands.

"Do you want to tal—"

"No," he said, abruptly. Apologetically, he added, "Sorry. No. 'M all right." He squeezed his talons together. They felt like they were trembling. He couldn't tell. It bothered him that he couldn't tell. That he couldn't even feel his own frame. Powerless. Numb. Helpless. A raw sound choked in his audio.

"You're not all right, little spike." Skywarp edged closer, pushing himself up onto one elbow. He placed the hand he'd been touching Barricade with on the brushed steel of the berth, palm up. Showing its emptiness. No weapon. No harmful intent. Barricade knew that. He KNEW that, on one level. But on another…. He waited for Skywarp to force the issue, to ask again. He dreaded it—he could already feel a roil of anger in his cortex, a pathetic defensive posture. That he'd rather be angry—at Skywarp—than admit to him what was wrong.

"What do you need from me right now?" the black jet asked. He'd gone rigid, afraid to move, as if picking up somehow that any motion would tip the balance against him.

"Just—go back to recharge," Barricade muttered. Knowing this was another trap laid by his anger and shame—you go, leave me alone to suffer, so I can get angry at you. Anything is better than feeling this.  
Except it wasn't.

Skywarp spoke carefully. "Barricade," his voice barely above a whisper, "I am afraid. Can you please be near me? It would help me recharge." A lie, an obvious patent falsehood. And a terrible lie at that. But one designed to bring Barricade closer. One designed to fox the trap Barricade's anger had set out. And the one thing Barricade could not refuse: a direct request from Skywarp.

He didn't want to. He felt…polluted all over again. Even though it had been a purge and not real. He felt unclean, and disgusted with himself that he'd ever let Skywarp touch such filth. The jet must not know, he couldn't know. Not the truth. And the truth would ruin them.

He didn't want to be touched. The idea of another mech's contact terrified him. But. Skywarp had asked. He braced himself and slipped back closer to the black mech, rolling onto his side so that his face was away. So that Skywarp couldn't see the expression of grief.

Skywarp draped an arm over him. "Okay?" A test. It had to be. It was…endurable.

"Yeah," he said. After a time, the weight of the arm became comforting, as his audio cleared, his core fluids running more slowly, the memory's hold on his processor shredding like fine tissue. He could hear the hum of Skywarp's engine, the comforting pulse of his systems. He pulled the arm closer, wriggling his central dorsal between the jet's cockpit and his ribstrut. It felt…safe here. Almost like a shelter. A cave. He heard his ventilation release, not realizing until that klik that he'd been holding his ventilation in, his core temp creeping upward for lack of air cooling.

The arm tightened around him. He waited for Skywarp to say something. He didn't want him to. He wanted to stay in this warm crevice, his sensors fuzzed by their combined EM fields, his audio filled with the comforting sounds of Skywarp's systems. Words would shatter this.

*****

Skywarp could feel Barricade trembling against him, his frame hot, febrile to the touch. He knew bad purges and their aftermaths from experience, and ached for what Barricade was going through. He could feel the mech's distance, aloofness, hesitancy at being touched, and the slow relaxing into it, the acceptance. An acceptance that still felt wary, like a wild animal ready to bolt.

He was frozen: aware that anything could cause harm here, even immobility. Should he tell Barricade what he guessed? That he knew what this was about? Starscream had told him, and Onslaught confirmed it. 'Had you ever--?' he'd asked of his Trine mate, optics pinpoint with fury. Starscream had lowered his head. No, but he had let it go on. It was, Starscream had tried to explain, lamely, pathetically, how things work on a mixed crew ship. Skywarp wouldn't know, working only with airframes.

Skywarp knew now, though, and his arm tightened around the smaller mech. He felt Barricade tense, then loosen (it couldn't be called 'relax'), as if forcing tension out of himself. For a long time they lay like this, each trapped fighting their own helplessness, unable to recharge, unable to speak. Or, unwilling to speak and risk breaking the delicate, tenuous bridge between them.

Skywarp had not ever been known for his patience. Eventually, he reached the end of his short supply of it. And he could not bear the uncertainty. And an idea came to him, finally.

"Barricade," he whispered.

He felt Barricade shift in his arms, but no other response. He in-vented. "I want to show you something," he said, softly. "Do you want to see it?"

Barricade pushed up, out of his arms. Skywarp felt a little dirty, like this was some trick. It is not, he told himself. "What is it?" Barricade responded.

Skywarp lay back, and popped the armor locks on the arm closest to Barricade. Barricade twitched at the sound, at first unable to place it. "Go ahead," the jet encouraged. He rocked his arm on the berth, loosening the armor plates. He felt a frisson of…not exactly fear, himself. But he had never done this. Never been unarmored before anyone other than repairbots. Not even Starscream. And even then, only one plate at a time. It was…exposing. Vulnerable. "Take them off," he said, his voice thready, trusting nothing but that Barricade would do what he asked. Because he asked. That kind of power over the smaller mech scared him sometimes.

Barricade's optics flickered, worried, but he obeyed, his fine talons lifting the heavy armor on the upper arm, separating the panels on the large forearm. Underneath, bare cables, power core and coolant and hydraulic and lubricant lines among the control servos and the signal relays. And the broad, fragile, flexible plates of connective cilia, waving anxiously now that the armor they connected to was gone.

"Touch," Skywarp said. He'd turned his head, half-fascinated, half-horrified at his own exposed mechanisms. He looked so…ugly. So bare and scrawny and naked.

"C-can't," Barricade stammered. He stroked the disconnected armor plating as if getting some comfort from the touch.

"The armor is not what I am," Skywarp said, quietly.

Barricade closed his optics for a long moment, Skywarp's comment hitting home in ways the jet could never know. He reached a trembling talon and gently, ever so gently, brushed one cable. Even though it was part of the cable that was normally exposed—in the jet's elbow join—the contact sent a shimmer of sensation across Skywarp's sensor net. He tensed. Barricade froze. "No," Skywarp said, "Please, more." He felt a tightness across his chassis as he spoke. Somehow this had become important for him as well, not just as a way to get through to Barricade. He'd thought he was merely showing his own vulnerability to the smaller mech. He was showing it to himself.

Optics flickering with worry, locked on Skywarp's face, Barricade risked a touch at normally unexposed cable, his talons clicking across the cable's mesh, a river of fine vibrations. He traced the line down the jet's forearm, stroking the warm lubricant line as well with his other hand. Skywarp gave a shuddering sigh. Barricade slid his hand across the still armored palm, curving his talons in the spaces between the larger jet's fingers. Skywarp squeezed against the hand, encouragingly, but needily at the same time. He watched, his entire focus riveted on the unfamiliar sensations in areas never before touched, as Barricade's talons explored the servos of his hand as they disappeared under the armor plating.

"Continue?" Barricade asked, his voice shaky. Skywarp nodded.

Barricade kept his hand interlocked with the jet's, his other drew long lingering lines up the mechanisms of the exposed forearm. Skywarp vented, unsteadily. Barricade risked a touch at one of the cilia plates, stroking the connective filaments as if they were fur. Skywarp gasped, his hand squeezing almost too hard against Barricade's. The feeling was…exquisite and terrifying both at once, right on the edge of too much to bear. Each of the connective filaments normally held the sensor endings for an entire area of the armor above it; all of that sensory ability concentrated to hair-fine strands. It was strangely erotic, but in a way he'd never felt before, one that wasn't located in his interface equipment, didn't seem to want an overload. Just a continuation. Just that it go on, spinning sensations like bright colors and sounds across his sensors.

"Hurt?" Barricade asked, his voice small. A little too late, probably, Skywarp released his over-tight grip.

"No. Again."

Barricade trailed both his hands through the filaments again, more slowly. As he did, each of the cilia clung to the metal of his talons for a fraction of a klik, trying to connect to his metal skin they way they did armor plating. "Oh!" he breathed.

"Hold still," Skywarp said. "Hold your hand there." His own ventilation was ragged, almost overcome.  
Barricade hesitated. "What will happen?"

"I don't know," Skywarp admitted. But he wanted to know. He wanted those little cilia grabs to continue. He wanted to see what it felt like, to know what would happen. His sensor net throbbed; his spark seemed to revolve faster in its chamber.

The smaller mech sighed, nervously, overcoming his resistance with a cooling vent of air, shooting Skywarp one last worried glance before he opened his palm and slowly, slowly lowered it to the span of one of the filament plates.

The cilia grabbed for the metal, sending a thousand little prickles through his sensors, like a continuous tingle. He could feel a presence at the other end of them, something large and dark and powerful, holding itself right now in some form of abeyance. He wondered what Skywarp felt from him. He stroked the one filament-connected hand with the other. They both shivered, Barricade and the Seeker, as his touch ran through both of their surface sensors.

Skywarp ached, body and spark. Why now? Why after all this time, after all of the partners he'd had, why did this one matter? Why did he open himself up for Barricade? He could feel, palpably, with color and texture and substance, the smaller mech's…gratitude (though that wasn't the right word, something mixed with adulation), and his constant struggle with himself. Skywarp had been used before (allowed himself to be used), admired before. He'd had mechs who swore they were unspeakably lucky to interface with him and meant it, but this one…it was more. It was a core deep  
acknowledgement, an openness Skywarp wasn't sure he could handle. Or reciprocate. How to return such vulnerability? Such trust? From someone as wounded as Barricade? It was…humbling. And Skywarp did not often experience humility.

Skywarp moved, his other arm coming to embrace Barricade. To pull him closer, not just for the smaller mech's comfort, but for his own. Barricade laid so much open before Skywarp, and that action itself was a kind of strength Skywarp wasn't sure he possessed. He didn't want, suddenly, to let Barricade go. This, though, this was all he could do: the lame physical echo of what his spark wanted.

The motion tore the fragile grip of the connecting cilia, leaving them both stung and breathless, sensors trilling at the sudden absence of connection, like a beautiful heartbreak.


	10. Overcharged

_A/N Thanks to 9aza: fixed the glitch now!!! _

Barricade clutched the pouch of his ration of energon as he entered the main room of the refectory, pausing to look for an unobtrusive spot to sit, autoinject, and go as unnoticed as possible.

"Little spike!" A voice cut through the crowd, followed almost immediately by Starscream's, "Hush!" The bronze jet continued, "Barricade, join us." Not so much a request as a demand, at least in the audio of anyone else listening. Barricade knew better than to protest, and carried his ration to the Seeker's table.

They were laughing, studying something on a datapad, as he came over. He sat down across from them, a little nervously. The last time he and Starscream had been together in the refectory, it had been…weird. Memorable, and good, but…weird.

"How very odd!" Starscream said, looking up at him. "Look, Skywarp, his ration is in a little pouch."  
Skywarp squinted, dubiously. "That's energon? It's not even the right color."

Barricade's talons tightened around the mauvy liquid in his ration. Their rations weren't in pouches—they were in cubical containers, and the liquid itself was shimmery pink and clear. "I-it's my ration," he said, meekly.

Starscream snatched it out of his hand, prodding at it delicately with one talon. "It looks like sludge."

"Groundframe," Barricade said, numbly, as Starscream experimentally put the pouch's tube in his mouth.

"Different grade."

"Blah!" The jet made a disgusted face. "This is truly repugnant. Skywarp," he said, handing the pouch over. "Taste this."

Helplessly, Barricade looked on in dismay as the black jet sampled his ration. He…he kind of needed that.

"That IS vile," Skywarp said after a sample. "Little spike, how the Pit do you drink this slop?"

"Don't drink it," he said, reaching lamely for his half-depleted pouch, "Autoinject."

Skywarp swatted his hand aside, and pushed his cube at the smaller mech. "Try this." Hesitantly, Barricade took a sip from the cube. The pink liquid's shimmer seemed to dance across his glossa, down his throat, and across his systems. It was like drinking happiness. Oh. This was good. It was…effervescent and warm and alive feeling. He blinked in surprise.

Starscream tapped the sludgy ration pouch. "Skywarp," he mused, suggestively, "I suspect that Barricade has never had high grade."

The Seekers' optics got that gleam that meant only bad things for Barricade, and if the pink energon hadn't been bubbling through his sensor net, he probably would have at least managed a protest.

*****

He thought he was doing a fairly good job of mobility, all things considered, clutching on to one barbed hand or another, or in one instance wrapping both arms around a large black thigh for balance. But all things considered, with the pink pure happy fuzz of the Seeker-grade energon fizzing through his systems, he thought he was doing fine.

He certainly felt fine. His head felt light, and the cloud of darkness, the fog of memories that haunted his cortex, had receded in the face of the pink bubbles. And even finer: the two jets were leading him to Skywarp's quarters, where he had a pretty good idea he'd enjoy what happened next. Those were good memories. He had precious few of those, but they were very, very good memories.

Speaking of good memories—walking up the hall, Onslaught, engaged in deep conversation with Vortex.  
Barricade tore himself away from Starscream's grasp. "Heeeeeeeeey, Onslaught," he said, staggering over, his four optics struggling to focus, reaching a hand out to pet the larger mech's shoulder. "Soooo hot. Think of you every time I washra---ooof!" The Combaticon swung him by his outstretched arm against the bulkhead, twisting the arm up behind his back.

"Reprise, anytime," Onslaught's voice cool in his audio, Barricade's cheek pressed flat against the wall. "Same rules as last time." A little louder, he added, "Got that?"

"Y-yes?"

Another twist of his arm that sent pain signals through the fuzz of his overcharged sensornet. He yelped.  
"Don't make me have to get rough with you." Louder still. Then quietly, so quiet it might have been his imagination, Onslaught's voice against his throat. "I enjoyed it, too." Barricade quivered.

Onslaught swung the smaller mech back to the jets. "See that you take better care of him," he said, sternly. Skywarp's long talons descended and scooped Barricade up off the ground. Barricade thought about protesting, but when he saw the whole variety of cables and hoses and servos in the jet's shoulder assembly, he suddenly thought it would be a better idea to play with those.

"I owe you one, Onslaught," Skywarp said, his voice rumbling pleasantly against Barricade's frame, his ventilation catching at the end as Barricade wrapped his glossa around a cable.

"One day I'll collect, Seeker," Onslaught said, over his shoulder, resuming his walk down the hall, Vortex looking on, bemused.

"C'n I be there?" Barricade slurred into a hydraulic line. "Just to watch or somethin'?"

*****

Barricade fell back against Skywarp's side, giggling. They were in the black Seeker's quarters, he and Skywarp sprawled on the berth, Starscream leaning against it on the floor. Oh, this felt so good. Warm and happy and…loved. He squirmed, rubbing his wing fairings against Skywarp's rib strut, sighing pleasurably. Over his head, Skywarp handed another of the pink cubes to Starscream.

"Having fun, little spike?" Skywarp asked, the now-empty hand coming down to stroke his drivetrain tires.  
Barricade arched into the touch, purring. "Yeeeeeeeessssss," he sighed. "Though it's not," he managed to feign some level, he hoped, of sternness, "it's against protocol to inebr—inebriate—inebriatify a standing officer of a war cruiser."

"But you are not standing," Starscream murmured, "You are…reclining."

Barricade fell to giggling again. Starscream took a drink of the high grade energon, and then leaned over the smaller mech, pulling him into a kiss. More than a kiss: the jet's mouth was full of the energon, warmed now, extra tingly. Barricade's hands clutched at the back of the jet's helm, his mouth eager on the jet's.

Starscream broke the kiss, ducking in for one last lick at a drop of the pinkish fluid that had fallen on Barricade's cheek. He grinned down at the smaller mech, and then ducked his head, running his glossa along Barricade's headlamps, causing him to squeak, his hands clutching at anything he could grab, which meant one hand on the bronze jet's shoulder armor, another around one of Skywarp's thighs.

He heard a soft hum of subvoc. "No fair," he protested. "No fair talking about me behind my back. Front of my face. Whatever. 'S mean." He was warming up to his theme when Starscream cut him short, burying his glossa in the smaller mech's exposed inner thigh. He could feel it probing, soft, warm, agile, among his cables, under his armor. His hips raised, involuntarily, along with the jet's glossa. "Primus," he said instead, "You are so fraggin' good at that."

"Am I?" the jet asked, innocently, his hand delicate on Barricade's interface hatch. "Let us see perhaps what else I am good at." He flicked open the hatch, and trailed his glossa in a warm wet circle around Barricade's valve cover. "Am I any good at this?"

"Yes!" Barricade squirmed, but found himself held still by Skywarp's arm across his chassis. The black jet grinned down at him, his optics spiralled large with desire. Oh. If Skywarp wanted this to happen, it was okay.

"You give in too easily, Barricade," Starscream chastised. "I think we should listen to your systems, not your vocalizer." Another duck of the head, the glossa flicking against the cover of his valve again. Barricade squeaked as it autoretracted. His whole frame trembled, jerking as the bronze jet probed into his valve with his glossa. He felt lubrication from his spike ooze from under its cover. Barricade shot another glance at Skywarp—even through his overcharge haze he had some vague awareness that he wanted Skywarp's approval.

Starscream laughed, softly, the vibrations enflaming against Barricade's valve. "Unnnnnnhh," Barricade shuttered his optics, his pelvic frame squirming against the jet's mouth. Starscream rewarded him with a series of probing licks, and then a more serious hunt for one of the sensitive nodes in the front wall of the valve.

Barricade shrieked as the jet's glossa found the node, tucked up behind the valve's collar, his talons digging into Skywarp's restraining forearm with force enough to score the paint. He tumbled into a thrashing overload, only dimly aware that he bruised his pelvic plate against the jet's mouth, and his helm struck hard enough against Skywarp's armor to blank his A/V for several kliks.

He was still shuddering when they came back online, his sensornet shooting a rainbow of sparks. Starscream moved up to kiss him, and he took the jet's glossa eagerly into his mouth, tasting dilute energon, and his own spike lubricant and the slightly ionized taste of an overload. His head fell back against Skywarp's body as Starscream pulled away.

"Your systems," Starscream said, "say that I am very, VERY good at that."

"Yes!" Barricade breathed. "Primus, yes."

"Show off," Skywarp said, tossing back the rest of the energon in the cube and sitting up. "My turn."

"Oh, no, dear Trine mate," Starscream said. "I do not think so."

Skywarp winked. "Are you going to fight me for him?"

"In a way." Starscream lunged at Skywarp, and the two wrestled on the berth. Barricade found himself suddenly—he wasn't sure exactly how—on the floor, their flailing limbs slicing the air over his head. I'll…just stay here a while, he thought, muzzily, still not quite recovered from Starscream's…whatever the frag THAT was. Floor is safe and comfy and his valve was throbbing in a very unexpected and pleasant way that deserved some quiet contemplation. Though they were noisy. He had a brief panic thinking about the last time they made so much noise. And Onslaught had had to intervene. His eyes flew to the door.

Onslaught. Ooooooh. His systems revved again. Maybe that wouldn't be that bad if he showed up.

Silence from above. Then, "Barricade, I require your assistance," Starscream said, mildly. Barricade struggled up onto the berth. The bronze jet had pinned his Trine mate flat on his back, squatting over Skywarp's head, his weight on the black jet's arms. Barricade blinked.

"What you need me for?" He couldn't help but let his optics travel rather slowly down the long lines of Skywarp's chassis, his legs. He shivered again, but with a pink fuzzy kind of heat. Oh, Skywarp. So fraggin' hot.

"It is time for Skywarp to be the one who is held down, do you not think? He shall show us with more precision how he wants us to struggle." Skywarp writhed in his grasp, but said nothing. And his eyes radiated pure desire at Barricade. Which was exactly what Barricade's own gaze reflected back at him.

"Don't know," he hesitated. "Don't really have a lot of practice at, you know…."

"Oh, Barricade," Starscream said, patiently, "You were more than adequate that one time in the refectory. Simply do what you did then."

"But…you were ordering me to do that."

"And I am ordering you now. Spike him, Barricade." Skywarp squirmed under Starscream's grip. The bronze jet shifted his position, pinning the arms higher up toward the elbows. Something of the struggle in Barricade's processor must have echoed on his face, because the jet modified his command. "Surely you will at least kiss him, yes?"

Now, that he could do. Wanted to do. Desperately. He crawled up the black jet's body eagerly, his smaller talons urgent on the larger mech's armor. Skywarp moaned under his feverish kiss, pushing up into Barricade's mouth with raw desire.

Starscream shifted above him, drinking from another cube of pink liquid, delicately. "We shall," he said, calmly, "have to go on a flight later, Skywarp, to discharge this excess energy. Whatever," he smirked, "you do not discharge here."

Barricade watched the pink cube, tilting his head back, tumbling off of Skywarp's shoulder. "How come you two aren't…?" He clawed his way back up Skywarp's body.

"Giddy?" Starscream asked. "This is our regular energon. It is meant for our systems." He tipped the cube, and a drop splashed down onto Skywarp's collar armor. "Oh dear," he said. "I have spilled some. And it is rather expensive." Barricade lunged at the droplet of pink effervescing happy on Skywarp's armor. Any excuse to touch him, to kiss him. Silly game, silly rules, but…he tipped his head, probing with his glossa into the seam in the armor. Skywarp shifted beneath him, sighing.

Starscream grinned, showily plashing another drop in Skywarp's exposed underarm. Obediently, Barricade clambered after it, his talons teasing along the cables in the joint as his mouth worked on the drop. His head felt fuzzy and light, almost like he could explode from happiness. And not mind at all.

Another plash, on Skywarp's cockpit. Barricade giggled, echoed by a soft, approving laugh from the bronze jet, and chased after this one as well. Skywarp groaned, arching into the lick. Starscream traced a line of droplets up the cockpit, back to the collar armor: Barricade scrambled, lizardlike, up the jet's squirming body.

Starscream leaned over, suddenly, his knees still restraining Skywarp, pushing Barricade's pelvic frame against Skywarp's with one heavy hand. Skywarp cried out at the contact with his interface hatch. "He wants you to, so badly," Starscream murmured.

"Can't."

"Do you not want to?" Oh Primus yes. His spike was vibrating with pressure. But, he couldn't.

"Not unless he says it's okay."

"Ah, well, you heard him, Skywarp. Do you have anything you would like to say for yourself?"

"Please," Skywarp gasped. "I want you." He shut his optics, as if afraid of the admission.

The energon and desire overrode any objection he might have had. His breath was hot against the jet's chassis, his hands clumsy against the interface hatch. Somehow he managed to get the hatch open, his own spike autoreleased the instant he touched Skywarp's valve cover. He shifted on his knees, pushing himself into the jet slowly.

Skywarp moaned, his shoulder gyros whining as he tried to pull out from under Starscream's weight. Barricade flung himself at the black jet's chassis again, twining his talons in the larger mech's clavicular struts, using them for leverage as he thrust into Skywarp's valve. The valve felt familiar. What didn't was that it was up to his rhythm, Skywarp lying there, moaning, quivering, underneath him. He tried to approximate the rhythm Skywarp normally used on him, but found himself thrusting faster, harder, as if being driven, chased by his own rising desire.

He made some sound as he overloaded, a sound that got drowned in Skywarp's answering cry. The black jet's frame heaved with force enough to toss Starscream off the berth. The long black arms pressed Barricade against the jet's chassis, their interface equipment still going through the intricate steps of overload, the valve clutching at the discharging spike with force enough to throw both their ventilations off.

Barricade collapsed against the jet's body, his chassis resting just above the rise of the jet's cockpit, his hands still engaged in the clavicle struts, his entire body quivering. "Primus," he gasped, the words wrung out of him by too much energon, too much…everything. "Primus, I love you." He nuzzled against Skywarp's throat. "Love you so much."

He felt a gentle pressure between his wing fairings. "I," Starscream murmured, "have that mission to brief next duty cycle. And I see that I shall have to take that flight alone." Barricade raised his head, and saw the two jets touch mouths briefly. "My work here," the bronze jet said, with a wink, "is done."


	11. Hangover

_A/N following on from last time.... _

Barricade rolled onto his side, blinking as his equilibrium slued hard to that side with such force he had to slap out a hand to brace himself. The pink fuzz from earlier had faded, pastel and threadbare and hot. His processor ached, unpleasantly, compared to the pleasant ache from his interface equipment. He would have to refill lubricant. Later. Right now, he just wanted to get his bearings. And maybe move.

Just a little. Just enough to get back in Skywarp's EM field. He missed the fuzzy static of contact.  
He saw a familiar assemblage of shapes in front of him: Skywarp's foot. He didn't remember exactly what they'd done before he'd fallen into recharge, so it was entirely possible he'd ended up this way, the black jet sprawled over the bulk of the berth. He grinned, some of the wooziness receding. He'd show Skywarp.

He pounced, pinning the foot to the berth's surface, sinking his glossa into the complicated platework of the Seeker's instep, laughing softly.

"I believe you are mistaken," Starscream's cool voice floated down to him. He went rigid. His optics traveled up the double jointed leg to…the bronze jet, leaning against the wall, a datapad in one hand. "Though I appreciate the experience."

Barricade pulled his arm away. "Sorry," he mumbled, his systems overheating from embarrassment.

"There is no need to apologize, Barricade."

"What are you doing here? Where's Skywarp?" He felt a strange hard weight in his tank as he spoke the question aloud. Like he shouldn't ask.

"You were seriously overcharged offshift. I am here to make sure you recover. Skywarp, himself overcharged, has gone to fly off the excess energy." Starscream put the datapad aside. "He will be back, Barricade," he said, answering some question Barricade hadn't been brave enough to ask.

"Know that," he said, but the hollow feeling in his tanks continued.

"Now that you are cycled on, we can begin treatment."

"Treatment?"

"You are not," Starscream said, pointedly, "the first ground mech we have overcharged. We are accustomed to the aftereffects." The comment stung. The jet handed a pale pink cube to Barricade. "Drink that."

His tanks roiled at the sight. "Uhhh, no, thanks."

"Trust us, Barricade. We have done this before. It will clear your head." He cocked his head. "Or shall I make it an order?"

Barricade frowned, but took a swallow from the cube. The bleary ache in his processor receded, a bit. Not much. He tried to hand the cube back to the bronzy jet, but Starscream had turned and lifted a basin onto the berth.

"Your system," the jet explained, "is trying to expel its excess energy through heat. Your heat sinks, if you check your core logs, have been operating at the high end of their acceptable parameters. That is what woke you."

Barricade checked—the jet was right. "So?"

"We cool you manually. Please recline. AFTER you finish the dilute energon." He frowned. Barricade drank obediently, and lay back. Starscream bent over him, laying soaked cleansing rags over his limbs. The ones right over his external heat sinks steamed, the sudden contact of cold against his overheated frame causing him to gasp. It felt…uncomfortable. Just for a klik, before subsiding into a delicious shiver. But he saw his external temp dropping out of redline, and the sticky muzzy feeling seemed to clear up. He sighed.

Starscream smiled, turning to switch out rags. "I did try to inform you this is not an unpleasant experience."

Barricade said nothing. Starscream pulled him over, lifting Barricade's head onto his thigh, forcing another sip of the dilute energon on him. The jet smiled down at him, indulgently, his wicked talons light and cool and gentle, stroking his overheated frame.

"I fragged up, didn't I?" Barricade said, finally, as if the jet's indulgent gaze broke him.

"How?"

"Opened my fraggin' mouth. That's why he's gone, isn't it?"

"Hush, Barricade. You overthink such things."

"Really." He turned his face away from another sip of the energon. Pettishly, childishly, but all he could do. He really didn't feel all that well. He tried to blame the sparkache on the overcharge, but it rang false.

Starscream sighed. "It is true that Skywarp is…uncomfortable with speaking such sentiments. However, saying it did not make it any more obvious, or true."

"I ruined everything." His mouth twisted, bitterly. Stupid Barricade. Always, always overreaching. Always want more, just a little bit more, than you have. Will you never learn to accept your portion?

He hated his portion. He wanted…..

Starscream laid a cool rag over his upper crest. "You have ruined nothing, Barricade. Melodrama does not suit you."

"Not melodrama."

"Ah yes, stating what was obvious to anyone who has spent ten kliks with the two of you is certainly ruinous. And fretting over three little words is most definitely not melodrama."

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Starscream."

A light laugh. "So I have been told."

"Fraggin' pathetic, aren't I?" Barricade tried to push himself off the jet's thigh. Starscream's large hand pinned him down. Pathetic. Can't even fight off one hand of a Seeker. "First mech who treats me as something other than a transfluid receptacle and just fraggin' look at me. Like a damn clingy drone." He shuttered his eyes. The processor ache came back, and brought company, aching in his vocalizer. "He probably laughs at me."

Starscream replaced the cleansing cloth on his brow. Barricade was churlishly grateful—he could blame the overflow of hot lens lubricant on the rag's dribbling. "Barricade, I suggest you are doing a disservice to Skywarp. He would not do that. And if he would, he would not, I imagine, be worthy of your sentiment."

Barricade quelled. Starscream was right. "Sorry," he muttered.

"Another unnecessary apology, Barricade. Your emotions are merely closer to the surface because of the overcharge.

"Don't like how it feels."

"Never be afraid of your feelings, Barricade." Pontificating. Barricade felt a stir of dull anger.

"Most of my feelings are pretty fraggin' ugly and small." He struggled to sit up: Starscream didn't stop him this time. He just couldn't bear being laid like a sparkling across the jet's lap, the Seeker grinning down in a way that now seemed condescending.

"Ah, but this one is not. This is big and pure and strong." Starscream laid a cooling rag over his wing fairings. He felt the cold fluid drip down under the plates. "Perhaps that is why you fear it."

"What the frag you know?" He twitched his wing fairings in irritation, sending cold liquid splattering down his back.

"Ah." Something in the jet's voice made Barricade want to turn and look. He resisted, fiercely. "I have felt as you do. Once. A long time ago."

"Can see that worked out well," Barricade snapped, and then bit back regret. Petty and small and mean, he was. Certainly not deserving of Skywarp. He was suddenly glad he wasn't looking to see the barb strike home.

"He died."

"Oh." Barricade ground his talons together, miserably.

"It probably would never have worked out, however, had he not. I certainly felt then I did not deserve him. I would have let that ruin things." He said that as a hint, a lesson.

"'M sorry."

A gentle touch on his upper tires. "You should stop apologizing. It becomes tedious to hear."

"Pretty fraggin' tedious to say."

"Indeed."

A long pause. Starscream ran an appraising hand over Barricade's external heat sinks.  
"So? What happened? I mean, to you."

"Ah." A long pause. This time Barricade tried to turn, aware that something horrible and fascinating was crossing the jet's face, but Starscream held him firmly away by one shoulder. "So. It was worth it. Worth all the pain I have suffered since. It is only a handful of memories, but they are worth…everything."

Barricade hunched, feeling smaller and pettier than ever. He had his own small store of precious memories. Which he'd probably manage to ruin.

The jet continued. "I live…every day with that loss. And I ask myself 'would he find me worthy, now?'"  
The talons clutched Barricade's tire enough to send a red-line alarm to his sensornet.

"'M already not."

"If you were, he would not have wasted his time with you." A flat statement, against which Barricade could not defend. It was all the more credible to him for not being a compliment. "I suggest to you, Barricade, that those memories I prize? They would not have come about, had we not opened up to each other. If we had stayed quietly in our unworthiness and our insecurities, he would still—most likely—have died, but we would never have had that. WE. Do you understand? I like to think," the jet's voice crackled. "I like to think that I gave him that experience, that without me he would have died never having felt it."

Barricade tore his arm out of the jet's grip, but Starscream had turned and was noisily, too-busily sloshing cleansing rags in the basin. He felt helpless: not knowing what to say; not knowing what he wanted, even; not knowing how to make the ache near his core subside. Another apology bubbled in his vocalizer, but it seemed irrelevant and flimsy. "Not Skywarp's first." Not that special. Your situation doesn't apply. Not to me. I'm just one...of many. And that's what kills me.

The door coded open, and Skywarp entered. His black plating was mazed with crystalline frost. Barricade felt very small and stupid looking, draped with damp rags in a puddle of liquid. And caught out, talking about Skywarp when he wasn't here. He lowered his head.

"How is he?"

"Still overheated," Starscream said. "And a little fragile."

"I'll be careful."

Starscream nodded and pushed himself off the berth. Barricade heard the soft hum of subvoc, as the bronze jet left.

Skywarp grinned, plucking the cleansing rags off him. "I have a better way to cool you down," he said, scooping Barricade up into his arms. His armor was frigid from his space flight. They both gasped at the contact, the contrast. The cold almost burned against Barricade's heat sinks; his own overheated frame causing Skywarp to hiss as if scalded, then pull him closer with a sound like a groan.

One of many, Barricade told himself. Replaceable. Discardable. Even so, his arms wrapped tightly around Skywarp's neck. To hold on, for as long as he was able.


	12. Overhead

_A/N Warning: sticky, dub/con, s/m . Things start going fairly dark from here. _

Starscream had been lurking, patiently, around the edges of his conscience all day. Skywarp had shut his subvoc channel, remembering Starscream's words from yesterday, "We need to talk about this." Prodding, even just with his presence, reminding Skywarp of things he didn't want to think about. Had deliberately avoided thinking about. Instead, he'd buried himself in his IG work, for once scheduling, and keeping, a series of interviews with the engineering crew. Morale was at a friable state on the station, so much so that combat efficiency had dropped off precipitously. And what Megatron would tolerate under his command got jerked up short when combat stats ran low. Hence, an Inspector General investigation.

Every time he looked at a mech, though, the question was in the back of his processor. Had you? Were you one of them? One of those who had done…that to Barricade? He wanted to kill them. Anyone who had ever put a talon or claw or digit on Barricade. Taken part, or even just observed. And I know, he thought, that means I've lost my objectivity. The whole reason I was sent here was to be objective. The loyal one. I know it means I'm too damn close.

Starscream eventually reached over and flicked off the datapad Skywarp was pretending to study. Not that he could learn any more by staring at the engineering shift rosters, anyway. He looked up, irritated. Go away, Starscream. I do not want to talk about it. He tried to radiate the message through his frame, so he wouldn't have to start a confrontation.

"You heard him," Starscream said, talons closing over the pad. "What have you done?"

Oh, don't remind me. What have I done? "Fucked everything up," he said, flatly. He jerked the datapad out of Starscream's grasp.

"No, you have not." Something struck the bronze jet as faintly amusing. Skywarp glowered him down.

"You know, YOU know above everyone, that I can't do it. You know I can't."

"I think you can. You have managed fine with Thundercracker and myself over the megacycles."

Skywarp flinched, pushed out of his chair, pacing. Trying to get away. No point: Starscream would follow him. Even on a flight. "You and he are stuck with me: that's why. I should never have dragged him into this.".

"Nonsense." Starscream lowered himself into the seat Skywarp had vacated. "You wanted him. And he had a choice. HAS a choice. Many points at which he could have said no. Is it fair to deny him his choice?"

Skywarp moved to sit on the console, folding his arms over his chassis defensively. "He didn't know what a bad bargain he was getting."

"He might say the same thing." Starscream extended one foot, locking its toes over Skywarp's thigh armor. Just in case the black jet wanted to leave. Starscream was going to say his piece, and Skywarp was going to damn well listen. "You cannot deny yourself every time you want something, Skywarp. That is no way to live."

Skywarp tried to summon an angry expression at the toes locked over one of his thigh plates, but the corners of his mouth jerked down. "I'm not good for him."

"You are good for him. You did not know him before, Skywarp, so you have not seen the changes."

"Going to make him miserable."

"You do not know that. And even so, miserable would be a step above where he was." Skywarp knew his history. He heard the resonance behind the words. Skywarp sighed, folding his arms over his chassis, leveling a steady glare at his Trinemate.

"There's one way this ends, and that's badly. I can't give him what he needs. I know that. I KNOW that."

"So you refuse to even try."

"You don't win a war by engaging in battles you know you'll lose."

"This is not war, Skywarp. Keep your battlefield sages—who were no doubt lonely and miserable themselves—for what they are worth."

"I can't do it."

A soft laugh. "You do not know that either."

"I'm in over my head. You know that. Onslaught knows that. Everyone knows it."

"Oh? You have discussed this with Onslaught?"

"None of your business." Starscream raised a supraorbital ridge. "Fine, yes. I've talked with Onslaught."

"And what does he say?"

"He thinks I'm in denial."

"Onslaught may have a point."

Skywarp's hands twitched in irritation, toying aimlessly with the datapad. "He's biased."

"Onslaught?" Starscream just let the question in all its ludicrousness hang there. Skywarp shook his head, as if trying to dispel the question. "So, I am curious that you have been discussing your love life with Onslaught again."

"It's not my 'love' life."

"Is it not?" Starscream's turn to stare down.

"He doesn't judge me. Unlike someone."

"Ah. Of course. And what does Onslaught have to say?"

"Nothing."

"Liar."

"You want a direct quote? Fine, he said, 'I did not think I would ever live to see anything make you afraid, Skywarp.'"

Starscream smiled, gently. "He does see right through you."

"Shut up."

Starscream sat forward, reaching one hand to pull one of Skywarp's off his chassis. "Make me," he goaded, pulling Skywarp in to loom over him.

"Don't," Skywarp said, with a strange helplessness in his tone, his optics shuttering closed as Starscream kissed the palm of his hand.

"Why not?" the bronze jet murmured, reaching with his other hand for Skywarp's interface hatch. "You know you always open up best this way." He stroked gentle fingers over Skywarp's spike cover, sliding the oozed lubricant down the spike as it emerged. The black jet shuddered. Skywarp snatched at Starscream's hands, pinning them over his head on the backrest of the chair, hot vents of air gusting down at Starscream.

"Ask him," Starscream whispered, arching over to press his face against the armor plate of one of Skywarp's pinioning wrists. "Ask him if he regrets getting involved. What do you think his answer would be, Skywarp?"

"He doesn't know any better!" Skywarp cried out. He tightened his grip until Starscream gave a small mew of pain.

"Did Onslaught? Did I? Should we not have known better?"

"You," Skywarp hissed, "deserve the continual malfunction. He—Barricade—does not." He snapped open Starscream's interface cover. Starscream sucked in a breath in anticipation. "Does he?" Skywarp rammed his spike into Starscream's hastily-uncovered valve. "Does he deserve this?"

"You need not—" Starscream gasped, breathless, at Skywarp's thrusts. "You cannot live your whole life under Thundercracker's shadow."

"Shadow?!" He squeezed harder at Starscream's wrists, shifting his grip to hold them both with one hand. His other raked down Starscream's underarm, sparking down the armor, gouging the cables. Starscream moaned. "He's ruined us for anything but this, hasn't he?"

"He has…changed us," Starscream admitted, clawing one foot at Skywarp, pushing his pelvis away, trying to unseat the spike. "But you need not," he hissed in pain as Skywarp wrenched at his ankle. "You need not visit this on Barricade."

"How can I not?" Skywarp's voice was agony. "It's just a matter of time." He snarled, driving his spike fiercely into Starscream's valve.

"You have…you have spiked him before. It did not happennnnnnaaaaaaugh!" Starscream twisted, his engines scraping the chair's back, as he tried to dodge Skywarp's hand, prying under his collar armor.

"I spiked him…ONCE. It was a constant struggle. Sooner or later he'll catch on. Sooner or later it'll matter. And then…." He squeezed at Starscream's throat. The bronze jet bucked under him.

"You arranged Onslaught," Starscream croaked, trying vainly to pull his neck away.

"That's mypoint. I couldn't even watch. I can't do that—do THIS—to him." Skywarp twisted his grip, grinding Starscream's wrists together before releasing them. Starscream's hands flew to his throat, trying to tear away Skywarp's choking hand. Skywarp winced, then growled, as Starscream's talons probed under the armor plating of his wrist. He squeezed harder, driving his long talons against the control cables, the energon line, in Starscream's throat, his palm muffling the bronze jet's vocalizer. "But you know I need to," he whispered.

For a long moment there was no sound but the slick drive of his spike in Starscream's valve, Starscream's flickering eyeshutters, and Skywarp's rhythmic growl. He howled, suddenly, jerking forward to sink his denta into an exposed core-fluid line in Starscream's shoulder hard enough to rupture the mesh. Starscream's entire frame spasmed, overloading against his Trine mate's body, garbled sounds burbling from his covered vocalizer.

They lay together, hyperventing, overheated, limp.

Finally, Skywarp pulled back, wiping the core fluid from his mouth, turning away, embarrassed.

"And then," Starscream whispered, stroking one long hand down Skywarp's face, picking up the conversation as if the violence had not happened, "And then, you will come to me."

"I can't."

"You can. You must. He will understand."

"How can he when even we don't understand?"

Starscream pulled his Trine mate closer, running his hands soothingly across Skywarp's engine mounts. Skywarp took the opportunity to bury his face in Starscream's shoulder. The same shoulder he had just bitten. He kissed the damaged line, apologetically, as if trying to wipe away the damage with his mouth. "He can understand because he wants to. And because he has his own darkness with which to contend."

"It'll ruin him."

"He feels he is already ruined. As do you." Starscream struggled upright in the chair, wincing as the black jet's spike slipped from his valve. "I understand your hesitations, Skywarp. Truly, I do. More than you know. But if you do not ever start because you fear how it will end…?"


	13. Blindside

The meeting—probably one to go down in the logs as an epic marathon—finally ended. It hadn't been made any shorter by Soundwave's constant nervous glances at the door. Waiting, no doubt, for more…involvement by Skywarp. Barricade kind of missed it himself, which did NOT make the meeting feel any faster. Where was he? Barricade had last seen him, sprawled in recharge, when he left for shiftcycle.

"Right," Soundwave said, "Next time, I shall expect suggestions to improve shift change efficiency. From each of you." A muffled groan rippled through the table. Well, that sounded awfully tedious. Then again, everything Soundwave did was boring.

Maybe, Barricade thought, it's just me. Maybe I'm just foul-tempered. Thinking of, you know, last meeting. Kind of hard to concentrate, sitting in the same chair, Bombshock giving me these weird looks like he's trying not to laugh. And Onslaught, pretending a little too hard like I'm invisible. I swear he's looking at me when I'm not looking.

After one last glare around the table, Soundwave dismissed them. Barricade stood up, gathering his datapad and input rods, trying to reshuffle the latter into some kind of order before he stowed them in his storage. The other mechs pushed away from the table with a rumble of sound.

Barricade bent over his storage when he felt something…weird, like the pull of a magnet, on the back of his head. Right before his optics blanked. He tried to remember who had been where—who this might be, as an unpleasantly familiar panic skirled up his sensornet. Bombshock's demeanor suddenly seemed, in retrospect, ominous. And it probably meant bad things. He heard the data rods scatter on the floor as his hands flew up—one to his head, the other slashing around to attack whoever was behind him. With Skywarp's noticeable absence, maybe someone was deciding to remind him of his place.

"Back off," he hissed. He could still hear the sounds of the other mechs exiting. No one coming to help.

"Oh, Barricade," he heard Starscream's voice just as he felt a large hand wrap around his arm, "Things are not always what they seem."

He dropped his hands, a little of the tension leaving his frame. Starscream wasn't his greatest ally, but he hadn't, certainly, done anything harmful. Embarrassing, yes. This was probably another of those.

But…that other time, in the refectory, had turned out pretty hot, so…maybe this would, too.

Starscream had never…you know. Even before. "It is so sweet," Starscream whispered in his audio, "how you trust me."

Before he could figure out a proper retort, Barricade felt himself scooped up, his feet swung off the ground, and something hard and broad—one of the jet's shoulder struts, he thought—across his midsection.

"Not really much choice." He grabbed blindly with his talons, trying to find purchase against what seemed to be Starscream's ailerons.

"How quickly you learn," the jet teased.

"Gonna tell me what this is about or do I not want to know?" Barricade felt his equilibrium shift—Starscream was walking, somewhere, with him.

"You," Starscream said, swatting him on the aft, "have been avoiding Skywarp. That is unacceptable."

"Haven't been avoiding," he said, lamely. Well, per se. Not really. "Recharge with him every offshift."

"Barricade," Starscream admonished, "Please give me some credit. I did notice how suddenly someone with your code ident has altered your work shift. You may recharge with him, but you do not go to him until you are certain he is already asleep."

Damn. Should have known the jet with a reputation for deviousness would see through his amateur-level devious plot. "I—uh, he knows?"

"He has not yet put it together. Because his Trine mate has been running interference for a certain small and annoying grounder."

"Sorry," Barricade mumbled into the jet's shoulder assembly.

"Well. Yes. We shall discuss amends you may make to me at a later date. However, more pressingly, I am running out of tricks to deploy on your behalf. It is time for this nonsense to end."

"Presume the blinding is part of it?"

"Nothing escapes your perspicacity, Barricade."

He heard the whoosh of a heavy door—not going to a recharge station. What was going on?

"You and he will work things out. Or else. Now, hush or I shall be forced to overpulse you."

*****

Barricade felt the cold first, as Starscream swung him down against the frigid floor. He heard footsteps, receding and another whoosh of a door. A hangar. He must be in a hangar. He pushed himself to his feet, shakily, taking a few steps—hesitant, cautious steps—forward, talons outstretched on empty air. His stabilizing servos seemed to work overtime for the simple act of walking without visual feedback. He stumbled over something, landing hard on a pile of cold armor plates with a series of clangs. He pushed away, his hands on the armor recognizing some of the shapes. And he felt the familiar tingle of Skywarp's EM field enveloping his own. He probed carefully, his left hand coming across the familiar swell of a cockpit. "Skywarp?" he said, hesitantly.

The shape under his hands shifted, groaning. "Little spike?"

"Yeah." He didn't know if his touch were welcome or not. He erred on the side of 'not.'

Some tension drained from the frame underneath him. "You okay?" "Video's out. But otherwise, yeah. You?" "Vid's out, too. Blinding processor-ache from the overpulse. Fraggin' Starscream."

A large hand pet him awkwardly. "There you are." Barricade risked another touch, encouraged by the petting. He ran one hand up the front of Skywarp's chassis. Skywarp made a contented humming sound. He pulled Barricade closer, guiding his head with his other hand into a clumsy kiss.

Barricade whimpered, clinging to…some struts or cables his talons managed to find, his mouth eager on Skywarp's. Oh he had missed this. All of his deliberate coming in late—he had missed this. His sensornet tingled with anticipation. Entirely inappropriate, really, in the circumstances. Skywarp gently pulled away. "I missed that, little spike."

Barricade lowered his head, ashamed, his chin bumping awkwardly against Skywarp's chassis. "Missed it, too."

"That's not all I've missed," Skywarp growled, softly, running his hands down Barricade's back, his dual-thumbs teasing at his wing fairings.

Barricade squirmed in desire and embarrassment. His fault. He'd been running away from his own mortification.

"You want to?"

Yes. YES. "Shouldn't we…try to find a way out of here or something?"

"What? And do what Starscream wants us to do? No way. Not when I have something…," he curled upward, guiding one of Barricade's upper tires to his mouth and gently nipping it, "so much better to do."

Barricade sighed at the contact. "In fact…," Skywarp muttered, and then lunged upward, dropping Barricade on his back.

Barricade brought his hands up, trying to find Skywarp. He hated not seeing. He felt warm vents of air over his legs, the gentle ticking of Skywarp's talons over the armor of his legs and chassis, exploratory.

"Oh!" he cried out as he felt a hot urgent kiss on one of his headlamps. He arched toward it, but it was already gone. Then, a tickling probe into his arm cables that made him gasp. Then the pliable warmth of a glossa above his pelvic armor. A soft laugh.

"I kind of like this, little spike. No idea where I'm coming from." He felt something approach his head, and tilted his mouth for a quick, teasing kiss. He could feel his capacitor race with arousal, his spike pushing a warm glob of lubricant. "And," Skywarp added, ducking down to kiss the interface hatch, "you cannot avoid me."

Barricade squirmed, his hands coming up involuntarily to push Skywarp away. "Not avoiding you," he muttered.

"Really?" Skywarp licked the plating of his hatch again. "A term you prefer better?"

"Just…just…," he lost his train of thought as Skywarp gently opened the hatch, tentative fingers finding his covers.

"Just?" Skywarp prodded the spike cover with his glossa.

"I—I was overcharged!" he blurted. "Didn't know what I was saying!"

"So…you didn't mean it?" A pause, a delicate circling of the spike cover with one talon.

"Uhhhhhh," he squirmed his hips, He did mean it. He just didn't mean for anyone to know about it. "Didn't want to burden you with it," he said, lamely; pathetically grateful suddenly for his blindness.

"Ohhhhh, little spike. Barricade," Skywarp corrected. "Not a burden. I just don't think I can do this."

"This?"

"Well," a soft laugh, another tease to his spike cover, which autoreleased. As with everything with Barricade, at the most inappropriate time. "I can do this part all right." Barricade gasped as he felt the jet's mouth on his spike. His hands flew down, stroking Skywarp's face. The curves and planes of his facial armor felt familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. His talons' pressure sensors felt extra charged, as if to compensate for his blindness.

"Please," Barricade whimpered. "Please. Want you." Was it wrong to have missed this? Was it wrong to admit, even just to himself, that he wanted this? That merely recharge wasn't enough? Did that make him no better than any other interfacing partner? One of many. One of very many Skywarp had had. He'd wanted to be different.

Another laugh, that reverberated through his spike. He shuddered. Skywarp pulled away, just for an instant. "You have me."

"No," Barricade said. "Not one-sided."

His frame arched into Skywarp's renewed contact with his spike. It had been so long and it felt so good and he still wasn't used to this kind of attention. It felt…uneven. Unfair. Like he was getting more than he deserved. Skywarp stopped, releasing his spike with one last lick. Barricade heard the heavy clack of hands against the floor on either side of his head, and then the feel of Skywarp's valve taking his spike.

Oh. He had missed this. So much. He raised his hands, sweeping them outward until they struck Skywarp's wrists. The jet lifted his hands, pinning the wrists down. It felt familiar, welcoming, things falling into place. Skywarp liked it this way, bracing Barricade's arms. Barricade had learned to, too. He'd learned to look forward to trusting Skywarp, to struggling helplessly against his own desire, to long for the feel of immobilizing pressure against his wrists.

"Not one-sided," Skywarp whispered. He rocked his hips over Barricade's. Barricade's body remembered the rhythm, and he shifted his own pelvic frame in a small counterpoint to Skywarp's moves. He gritted his jaw, his already charged spike was too ready to overload. He knew what he wanted, how he wanted this to go. He would do it.

Skywarp's cooling ex-vents blasted down at him in hot bursts of air, the weight of his thighs a slick pressure sliding over Barricade's hips. Blind, it seemed as if every sensor node had transferred functionality to his overload systems—Barricade bit his own glossa, hard enough to hurt, to gain control over himself.

"You KNOW I need you to--!" Skywarp slammed Barricade's wrists against the floor with enough force that the wrist tires squeaked against the deck plating. Barricade yelped, and the overload he'd been holding back flooded through him. Skywarp made a guttural sound.

Barricade could feel him arching his back up, his valve quivering against Barricade's spike. Skywarp groaned, dropping to his elbows, throwing one leg between Barricade's thighs. Barricade hurriedly shifted his legs to accept the new mass. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," Barricade breathed. He wriggled his hands free from Skywarp's grasp, reaching up to stroke blindly at the jet, his talons finding armor he couldn't place, which made him feel bad. He felt he should know. Should recognize Skywarp plate-for-plate, even blind.

A belated shudder ran through Skywarp, eliciting another gasp from Barricade. "Told you: not scared."

"I don't want you to hate me. When it happens."

"Won't. Can't." "Oh, you can. It's not as hard as it looks." A bitter sound. Barricade ran a hand over his face. His own face felt unfamiliar and strange. He leaned closer, the delicious fuzz of their combining EM fields disrupting the chill from the floor.

"Won't say it again if it makes you that uncomfortable," Barricade muttered. He reached up again, his hand more confidently finding a clavicular strut.

"It made YOU uncomfortable, little spike. I was…well. I've got my own stuff. That it's not fair to inflict on you." Skywarp hadn't been uncomfortable. He'd been terrified. Knowing his own capacity to inflict harm. His need to. And how undeserving Barricade was of that.

"One sided, again." A sensation of sagging weight.

"I guess you're right. And it's not fair when you put it that way." Can't you see I am trying to protect you? And…and myself. I…could not bear it if you hated me. Both for your sake and my own. Selfish, really. Starscream was right. Would rather run away than risk bringing into the open my damage. My flaws. Would rather live without things than risk that exposure. Except…he wouldn't rather live without. Not this time. "There are things I have to tell you. But…not now. I'm not ready." He felt his whole body shake at the admission, carrying a tremor through his voice. He felt Barricade's smaller talons clench over his armor, helplessly holding on.

"Can wait. Will wait."

"And if it's never?"

"Then…it's never. Just…don't leave me because of it." I want, Barricade added, wishing he were bold enough to say it aloud, I want to know all of you, the good and the bad, the light and the dark. I want all of that. All of you. I want to show you what I see of you. I want you to see what I see. I want you to know you can stand completely open before someone, and not be found wanting. "Sounds pathetic," he muttered.

"No," Skywarp breathed, and Barricade realized he'd been speaking out loud. "Sounds beautiful."

*****

"Ah," they heard a voice say, and then the sound of approaching footsteps on the cerametal floor. "Reconciliation: also beautiful." Barricade ducked his head to the side, embarrassed. Even blind, not wanting to be seen. He felt a hand reach behind his head, and another magnetic-field pull its tendrils away. His vid feed flickered back to life, giving him a—rather welcome—opticful of Skywarp's upper chest. He could feel his spike repressurize just at the sight. It had been too long. Only a few solars, but….

"You've been here the whole time, haven't you?" Skywarp groused.

"I was…supervising."

"Supervising," Skywarp's eyes warmed up to fully-online red, locked pointedly at Starscream's pelvic armor. "I'm sure you got nothing out of it." Starscream at least had the decency to hide his hand behind his back.

"On the contrary, Skywarp. You know me better than that. Everything I do is entirely self-serving."

"I suppose you think I owe you now."

"You do. But right now," the bronze jet stretched showily, arms long over his head. "I shall merely enjoy a nice long recharge cycle free of worry about my Trine mate's affaires du coeur." Skywarp reached up for Starscream's thigh.

"Maybe you won't," he challenged.

"Oh, I think rather that I will. Somehow, while you were…occupied sorting out your differences, SOMEONE," he paused to preen, "overrode Barricade's duty assignments. It appears that this is now his non-shift cycle."

Skywarp's frown crumbled at the edges. "What an amazing coincidence."

"Oh, it is no coincidence at all." Starscream dipped to one knee petting Barricade on the head as he gave Skywarp a brief kiss. "You owe me," he said, pushing back to his feet. "Both of you."


	14. Prank

A/N: pointless smut for your first chapter. A response for this threesome from the kink meme. I figured...maybe you're a completionist and you want to read everything, good or bad. Next chapter, much more emotional. So if pure raunch isn't your thang, just skip on over to the next chapter, and no hard feelings, okay?

*****

Skywarp grinned, that way he knew Barricade couldn't refuse. "It'll be really hot! And you know Starscream's been feeling a little…neglected lately." Barricade didn't care how neglected Starscream had been feeling, but…he was kind of a sucker where Skywarp was concerned. If Skywarp wanted it, and it was in his power to make it happen….

"Yeah, okay," he heard himself say.

Skywarp kissed his crest. "It'll be fun. Trust me." I trust you. But this is weird.

"If we do it right, he won't wake up till he overloads."

"What if we do it wrong?"

"Then, he probably tries to kill us for sneaking up on him." Skywarp grinned. Starscream did not like being woken up in the middle of the recharge.

****

Skywarp placed an unnecessary finger to Barricade's lips as he bent to code the door. Skywarp had planned ahead for any contingency (good naughtiness required this kind of foresight) and had plied Barricade with enough energon that he wobbled a bit on his feet, and sucked the warning-finger into his mouth. Skywarp smiled. Barricade was so adorable when slightly overcharged. If only I could keep him like this all the time, he thought. Uninhibited and a little silly. It was probably closer to the real Barricade anyway, he figured, you know, without all those walls he puts up.

The door coded open silently and Skywarp slipped in, gesturing Barricade to follow.

And there was our prey: Starscream, sprawled out across his berth, flat on his back. Well, not flat: his spine arched around the rise of his engines, his head lolling back against the berth. One hand lay across his cockpit. Skywarp snuck closer, hearing the soft clicking of Barricade's eyes cycling to lowlight. The trick, Skywarp thought, would be to get the interface panel open before Starscream woke up. His damn Trine mate was the lightest sleeper. Great on patrol, really fragging annoying for pranks.

Still, Skywarp had a reputation to uphold. And Barricade to have hot sex with. With Starscream.

He approached the berth's side, leaning over carefully, resting one hand for balance on the metal surface next to Starscream's side, while his other hand reached slowly, carefully, for the interface panel.

"Whoa," Barricade whispered. Skywarp cringed, his audio hitting his shoulder armor. "He's really kinda hot when he's asleep."

Starscream made a soft sound in his sleep, rolling over onto his side, arms flopping to the berth with a loud clatter. Skywarp saw his chance. He flicked open the panel. Starscream sighed in his sleep. Skywarp leaned closer to the panel, tracing the cover to his Trine mate's spike with feather-light touches. Starscream sighed again, flopping his hips flat, his legs apart. Perrrrfect. Maybe all those vorns, he wasn't such a light sleeper anymore?

Skywarp leaned over, carefully, and trailed his glossa around the spike cover. He grinned as it retracted. Good progress. He breathed a warm exvent at the spike, so it wouldn't notice the sudden cooler air of the room as it pressurized. He daintily teased the tip with his glossa, coaxing out some lubricant. Starscream moaned softly in his sleep. Barricade clambered—quietly, at least—onto the berth, watching Skywarp with slightly overcharged keen eyes.

"Frag you are so hot," Barricade breathed as Skywarp took his Trine mate's spike in his mouth. Barricade glossed a hand across his own interface panel.

Skywarp closed his eyes, because he was in danger of becoming distracted. Hot little grounder. Curious how their spikes tasted different. The spike responded to his gentle brushes against the nodes, the light suction he used. Starscream shifted in his sleep again.

"What do I do?" Barricade whispered urgently.

"If he wakes up, you hold him down." Skywarp said, quickly, stroking his talons along the spike to maintain the rhythm he had started. Barricade nodded, shifting himself, ready to pounce on Starscream if he awoke.

Skywarp worked his mouth around the spike again, a little more boldly this time, tilting his head so that the entire length of the spike entered his mouth. Another wash of lubricant rewarded his efforts. He could feel the charge building up. He smiled, around the spike in his mouth, anticipating Starscream's howling overload. He was NEVER quiet when awakened this way. That was, of course, part of the fun of it.

Starscream's torso shifted again, to one side, rolling off the engine mounts. Skywarp felt the tingle of the rising charge. Soon. Yes.

"Ha!" Starscream cried out, throwing himself at Skywarp's long legs, extended near himself. With one hand he braced Skywarp's legs apart, opening the hatch with his mouth. "Do you think I am so gullible, Skywarp?"

Barricade had jumped back at the suddenness of the bronze jet's move, falling hard on his aft. He looked at Skywarp, sheepishly. Skywarp winked, and wrapped his arms around his Trinemate's waist, rolling onto his back, still working at the spike with his glossa.

"I," Starscream said, "shall show you: superior technique. Considering your head start." He coiled his glossa around Skywarp's already erect spike, pulling it into his mouth with a slow, languid motion. Skywarp shuddered.

"Uhhhh," Barricade knelt beside them, confused and painfully aroused. "Can I like help or something?" One wrist tire skated over his interface panel again, his eyes glued to the writhing bodies of the two Seekers. He didn't think he'd ever seen anything this hot. Not even Skywarp going down on him. He watched as Skywarp's hands skittered over Starscream's aft, down the backs of his thighs. Ohhhhhh, that was not a place to be thinking about. Barricade's talons unconsciously flipped open his interface panel, gently touching his erect and lubricant-oozing spike.

"MMmmmph," Skywarp moaned, his mouth still full of his Trine mate's spike. Starscream took a pause, lifting himself off his Trine mate's chassis, licking his way up the spike, letting the hot breath of his ex vents sting against the lubricant.

"Whose side are you on, Barricade?" Starscream asked, his optics alluring and red. Barricade whimpered. He was on the side that wanted them both to get off. And…maybe himself? Was that the wrong side? Skywarp trailed his hands down Starscream's thighs again. Obviously. Too obviously for it to be coincidence the way he drew attention to how Starscream's entire hindquarter shivered at the touch. And in case Barricade was not up for obvious, Skywarp went for the blazingly obvious, tracing his Trine mate's valve cover with one thumbtalon until it autoreleased.

Barricade quivered as his spike released another measure of lubricant. He scrambled over, carefully placing his knees around Skywarp's head, and slowly, carefully, just in case it wasn't what Skywarp wanted, pushed into Starscream's valve.

The bronze jet's spinal cabling arched up, Starscream gasping, the spike dropping from his mouth. "Cheating," he breathed. "So very cheating." Barricade heard Skywarp snicker beneath him, encouragingly. Not that he needed much encouragement. Starscream's valve felt different than Skywarp's—the nodes had a different frequency and charge against his spike—but it parted eagerly through the length of his spike. He pulled away, and then in again, slowly, his hands reaching up the jet's spine, brushing his engine mounts. Starscream growled, ducking his head back to his task, teasing with the tips of his talons at Skywarp's own valve cover—determined that he could beat Skywarp at his own game. WITHOUT additional help.

Skywarp's arms jerked down against Starscream's waist, claws digging in under the armor plates, a growl vibrating in his intake. Barricade rocked, almost dizzy from the overcharge and the definite overstimulation of the sight of the two of them working at each other, the soft slightly wet rhythmic sounds of their mouths, eager on spikes, the scent of ozoned lubricant.

He dug his smaller talons in, one into Starscream's back, one into Skywarp's clutching forearm, thrusting harder into the bronze jet's valve, adding his own wet sliding sound and his own charged-lubricant scent to the mix, and his own quiet moans.

Well, when it came right down to it, Skywarp didn't play fair, and never really had. Starscream overloaded, both his valve and spike jerking simultaneously, unable to hold off any more. Skywarp swallowed the transfluid, slowly, in small parcels, making sure that the back of his intake compressed the tip of the spike with each swallow, revelling in how it made Starscream's hips buck, dragging the valve against Barricade's spike. Skywarp exvented sharply, letting himself release the overload he'd been holding in: lying there watching Barricade's spike—his spike!—sliding into Starscream's valve, watching the lubricant build up and slip down the valve's rim…it had taken everything he had to hold off.

Starscream growled, trailing his denta up the spike as he sucked the transfluid out the length of it, but arching into another cry as Barricade clutched against him. Skywarp felt his own spike struggle to repressurize, watching Barricade's overload unfold in front of him in a series of suddenly sharp, short thrusts, silver transfluid joining the ooze of lubricant.

Skywarp gave Starscream's spike a farewell lick, and lunged for Barricade's exposed valve, his glossa trailing through the lubricant and transfluid leaking from Starscream's to coat the valve's sensitive lining and charge the nodes. Starscream collapsed to one side, eyes dim and sated, as he watched his Trine mate tug Barricade's pelvic frame down on top of his eager mouth.

"Oh, Skywarp," Starscream sighed. "You never learned that this trick never, ever worked out for you."

"Think," Barricade gasped, as Skywarp probed his valve with his glossa, "working out…pretty well!"


	15. The Gift

_A/N Uh oh. I see...plot developing.  
_

It had seemed like such a perfect idea. He read about it in a cultural history datatext, some warrior thing. It seemed just…perfect. He was no good with words: he knew that. So he was hoping this would say what he wanted to say without any of his messy, clumsy, well, Barricade-ness. You know, symbolism, and that sort of thing. The idea had even seemed good as he pushed the boundaries of proper requisitioning and signed the order. It even seemed pretty damn good as he lay in the repair cradle, the repair bots clicking as they installed the temporary baffles that protected his spark as they removed the chamber's cover. It hurt, more than he thought it would, but even that was okay. Okay that it hurt. It was a good kind of hurt, open and clean, air aching against his never-before exposed spark.

It gave him…ideas. Ideas he knew he wasn't ready for, but still, those ideas kept him engaged in a pleasant spiral of (admittedly complete and utter) fantasy while they installed the new cover. What would it be like to spark link with—oh he couldn't even make the sentence without shivering with delight. The little bots had bleeped curiously as he snatched the removed cover from their little pincers. But they were non-sentient little bots, with hardware that forbade them to question the directive of a sentient mech. Good thing, because he wasn't sure he was up to explaining it to anyone else.

He'd affixed the magnets himself, wearing it over his own new cover, in some symbolic way to keep the spark's radiant energy charged in it. That's what all the poetry had said. Why it was special. As close as you could come to a spark link. Without, you know….

It was a perfect idea. Wasn't it?

Until…now it didn't seem so perfect. It seemed, as he held his removed spark cover in his hands, right outside the hangar where Skywarp was preparing to leave, like a really stupid idea. The stupidest idea he'd ever had. EVER. Stupid symbolism. Stupid gesture. Skywarp would laugh at him. Or worse, pretend like it was really cute in a condescending way, and then laugh at him. Primus, he was an idiot. Overtaken by foolish sentimental notions. Not thinking clearly. Only thinking how much he'd miss Skywarp during the decacycle of his mission window. Wanting to do something that…well, that showed that. Maybe something so Skywarp wouldn't forget him.

That was what he feared most of all, of course. That Skywarp would find someone better and move on and forget he ever knew Barricade. It was a distinct possibility—just about any mech qualified as 'someone better'.

He didn't have time to stow the damn thing—not and get back here in time to say goodbye. He danced on agony. No, he had to say goodbye. Even if it meant being laughed at.

He hit the door controls, and flinched as he heard Skywarp's laughter mixed with Starscream's. The bronze jet would be merciless. He swore, and stuck the cover by its magnets to what he hoped was an unobtrusive place in his back kibble. He tried to look, well, not dorky and stupid as he entered the hangar.

Skywarp was leaning against a weapons crate, Starscream tracing over seams in his armor. A tub of something sat on the crate next to Skywarp. It looked…weird.

Barricade hesitated. Had he walked in on something again?

Starscream caught sight of him. "Oh, wonderful. Barricade, this should go much more smoothly now that you are here."

"Uh…what?" He sidled over, trying to keep his back to the door, away from the bronze Seeker. If Starscream saw it, he'd be…ruthless.

"Skywarp will be going on an intrasystem flight, and his seams require greasing. It helps prevent thermal seepage."

"Not sure how I'm supposed to…?"

"Your talonpoints are a bit smaller, little spike," Skywarp said. "It helps to get into the smaller joins."

"Sh-shouldn't you be in your alt mode then?"

Starscream smiled at him indulgently. "That would be silly. This helps spread the grease to the underplating."

Oh. Well, he guessed that made sense. What did he know about flying? All he knew was that it was more or less terrifying. And the idea of flying in space—no thank you. Cold and lonely and dark.

"Now, would you like to help? It would involve an awful lot of," Starscream winked at him, "physical contact."

Barricade hesitated, acutely aware of the damning thing stuck to his back, but also…aware that this would be the last time he'd get to touch Skywarp. It was only for a decacycle, but still…it seemed like forever. Already.

Starscream laid the canister on the ground next to him. The grease in it was lilac purple, liquefying as he rubbed it between his talons. Watching Starscream, he emulated spreading the grease along the seams and edges of Skywarp's thigh armor. His palms quivered. Even his armor was fascinating—broad sweeps of matte black plating, over smaller, finer scales. Barricade's own simple armor-over-systems seemed clumsy and uncouth by comparison.

Skywarp snickered. "Giving me ideas, little spike."

It was giving Barricade ideas as well. He slicked his fine talon points into the inner cabling of Skywarp's thigh, grinning as Skywarp gave a fluttering sigh.

"You do not have time for that," Starscream admonished. "Not if you wish to make your parabolic vector."

Skywarp pouted. "But I miss it!"

Starscream tilted his head, eyes narrowed.

"What? I have a high libido."

"I AM aware of that," Starscream retorted. "You also have an important mission to fly."

"I could make it quick."

"No, you could not, Skywarp," Starscream scolded. "And then I would have to regrease your interface panel, and then you would never get out of here."

What? Barricade felt vaguely upset he'd missed the initial greasing of the interface panel. Something must have shown on his face: Skywarp laughed. "No, little spike. Starscream kept his hands—and all his other parts—to himself."

Somehow, it mattered to Barricade that he had been the last interface before this flight.

He bent down, Skywarp obediently lifting his foot, to spread the grease between the toes, among the barbs. Skywarp wriggled his toes playfully. "Definitely giving me ideas. For when I get back."

Barricade glowed. He'd take that. In fact, he'd file that away and replay it and live over the promise of that for the entire decacycle. He switched to the other foot, scooping up more grease, scuttling around Starscream, who moved to work into Skywarp's shoulder assembly.

Skywarp laughed. "Oh we are definitely doing this again. All this attention," he purred.

"You are greedy and shameless," Starscream said.

"I learned from the best," Skywarp retorted.

Starscream stepped back, just as a red light flared by the hangar door. "That," he said, with one last appraising swipe of his greased fingers across Skywarp's chassis, "should do it. And just in time. Your parabolic vector window is about to open."

Skywarp pushed himself off the crate with obvious reluctance, bending down to scoop Barricade into an embrace. "Have to leave, little spike," he murmured. Barricade could feel the slickness of the liquefying grease between their chassis. He clutched out with his hands. Skywarp grinned, shifting his grip.

And then.

Barricade flinched as he heard the sound of something metal clatter to the floor. Oh, slag. He'd somehow managed to forget entirely. How could he have forgotten? Idiot. IDIOT!

"What is this?" Starscream said, stepping behind him. Barricade gritted his optics shut, waiting for the inevitable scathing taunt. "Oh," he heard Starscream say. And then the clack of footsteps, hastily retreating. Barricade felt Skywarp turn, looking after his Trine mate.

He wriggled free, trying to get to the damning thing before Skywarp could see it; hoping he could make up some story about what it was. No such luck.

"What you got there, little spike?" Skywarp's head tilted, curious.

"Nothing." He whipped it behind his back, trying to get the magnets to readhere. But the grease had coated his back plates. It clattered to the ground again.

Seekers were fast when they wanted to be, and before Barricade could pick it up again, Skywarp had lunged forward and snatched it up.

"Oh," he said. That didn't sound good. That's what Starscream had said…right before he ran out of the room.

Worst idea EVER, Barricade thought. He ground his talons together.

"This is—Barricade, is this for me?"

Barricade dropped his eyes. "Stupid idea. Don't know what I was thinking."

A snort of laughter. "I think I know. And it's not stupid."

Barricade looked up: Skywarp was turning the spark chamber cover over in his hands. Skywarp traced his serial number with one of his thumbs. "I need your help, little spike," Skywarp said, abruptly. He crouched down. "There's no time to get this installed properly," he added. Barricade shivered as Skywarp began retracting the armor over his spark chamber. Just like he'd fantasized. Terrifying and everything he would ever want, sliding open in front of him. And Skywarp's words—'installed properly'. He felt his entire body tremble. "My hands are too greasy, can you…?" Skywarp gestured for Barricade to affix the cover on top of Skywarp's own.

His talons shook—he had to steady one hand with the other as he placed the cover. His talons were slick with grease, too, but he was determined not to screw this part up. It was something…almost sacred.

He could feel the energy of Skywarp's spark like a field—more powerful than the EM field he already knew. This felt old and powerful and dark and beautiful.

The magnets clacked on solidly. Skywarp hung for a moment—Barricade risked a glance up and saw Skywarp had shuttered his optics. He heard a long slow vent cycle. Then the armor slid back into place, and he felt Skywarp's arm around him again. "I don't have anything to give you," Skywarp murmured. "Nothing that could even compare…."

Barricade looked to the door. "Starscream…?" he began.

"Long story, little spike. I'll tell it to you when I get back." He ducked down for a brief kiss. Barricade could taste the lilac grease—a taste he'd forever associate with this moment and the conflicting roil of emotions: hope, desire, fear of losing Skywarp, terror at letting him out of his sight. Terror at being forgotten.

His talons clutched into Skywarp's shoulders. A klaxon sounded. The spaceside hangar door irised open. A blast of cold air shocked against them.

Skywarp cursed, looking up. "Vector window," he muttered. He squatted back down, hastily, and pulled Barricade's audio close. He rattled off a string of numbers. "Got that?"

Barricade nodded, puzzled. "What is it?"

"Private comm freq." Skywarp stood, shrugging. Looking somehow, unbelievably, awkward. Embarrassed. "It's the only thing I have I can give you, Barricade." He took a few steps to the door. "Please use it. I think I'll die if I don't hear from you." The klaxon blared again. He ran to the spaceside door, his black shape too quickly turning into a silhouette cut out of the stars.

"I love you," Barricade murmured, to the sudden hollow darkness.


	16. Reciprocity

_A/N following on from last time.... _

"Yes," Starscream said over comm to Skywarp. "I have already told you I shall do it."

"And—I'm sorry. About the Skyfire—"

"He did not know. It was not deliberate. I certainly will not blame him for it. I am a bit more mature than you credit me." A long pause. "You accepted it." Not a question. Merely requesting confirmation of what he already knew.

"What could I do? Throw it in his face?"

"I did not suggest anything of the sort, Skywarp."

Another long pause, this time on Skywarp's side. "I—don't think I can talk about it right now." A semi-apology embedded in the words.

"I understand," Starscream murmured. He did. In his way, Starscream knew more about not being able to speak about some things than was healthy. "I shall let you go. It is almost time for your next waypoint." Trust Starscream to be running the flight calcs on his Trine mate's flight.

"Right. Thank you, Starscream."

"It is no trouble, Skywarp. I suspect that otherwise, I should be lonely as well."

Starscream cut the comm link and Skywarp was left with his thoughts in the expanse of space. It wasn't dark, not to him. Solar winds from various stars swept across the thin vacuum, carrying charged particles in almost hypnotic patterns as they swirled and eddied about each other in a whorl of colors. On top of those, his flight calculation overlays made a red-lined sense of it all, labeling stars and systems and known anomalies effortlessly on his HUD. It was a simple—tedious, really—flight now that he'd caught that gravity well that had rocketed him at a dizzying, rushing speed toward his objective.

He wished he could take Barricade for a parabolic vector run—the thrilling rush of the speed and teetering on the brink of control as the sudden acceleration momentarily kicked his frame above his sensors' ability to read, sure death in the black hole singularity skating by one's wingtips. But Barricade was afraid of flying. And his light frame would be crushed at the gravity well's force perimeter.

Something he could not share with the small groundmech. Something coming between them. So much…so much already lay between them—unbridgeable gulfs of experience, and age, and knowledge. Too much? Starscream didn't think so, but Starscream's hopeless romanticism was always aimed at someone else's relationships. His own were…devoid of anything like genuine connection. For the same reason Skywarp's normally were:

Thundercracker.

And he'd definitely think any distance was too great to bridge. Groundframe. Young. Damaged. Non-warrior. The list of flaws Thundercracker would find in Barricade came all too easily to Skywarp's processor. He hated that little colony of Thundercracker, living in his cortex, ready to spring into action with its judgments. He hated that he could already see and list them and recognize them as flaws. Objections.

He stood in his own way. And he hated it.

He felt, like a physical pulse, a throb against his spark chamber. It was probably nothing but his imagining, this sense of Barricade's spark chamber cover atop his own, a vibrant, quivering, alive thing. What had it taken out of the smaller mech to do that? And for him?

Yes, a piece of metal. That's all it was. Nothing but a multilaminate alloy, as common as anything. It wasn't even very pretty—Skywarp had seen the burnishes where Barricade had obviously tried to rub away some old stain or picocorrosion, trying to remove the marks of damage and neglect, and replace them with a scratchy satin sheen. How many cycles had the smaller mech sat rubbing at the chamber cover, polishing it desperately? What had he been thinking as he did? That it was not good enough as it was? What hopes and dreams had he let run wild through his processor as his little talons worked away at trying to erase the marks of his life?

Nothing but a piece of metal. Tell that to Starscream, whose hand would steal toward his own spark chamber at the mere mention of Skyfire's name.

A piece of metal like a promise or a wish made solid. Now an extra layer over his own spark chamber—too small to replace his own, but sitting atop it, a sweet singing weight, barely anything at all, but…so very heavy.

It awed, and terrified, Skywarp how Barricade could do that. After all that had happened to him, he could still, STILL, lay himself open so easily, so thoroughly—physically, metaphorically. Unlike Skywarp himself.

I am, he thought, miserably, at the same moment he would have clutched hungrily at the spark cover himself if he'd been in his robot mode, undeserving of this.

His astrogation bleeped at him. The next waypoint. He made a slight correction in his flight path. Every klik bringing him closer, of course, to Thundercracker.

It was inevitable, of course. Sooner or later, Thundercracker would find out. The longer it lasted, the worse it would get. For Skywarp and for Starscream. Who would doubtless be accused of shielding his Trine mate in his perversion as it was.

But Skywarp wasn't ready. He wasn't ready for the fraught symbolism of what the spark cover represented; he wasn't ready to face Thundercracker. It had grown from a mere lark, an amusement, toying with a naïve little mech. He was kidding himself if he told himself it had started as anything else. But it wasn't that any longer. He didn't know what it properly was, though. Didn't know what box to put it in. What category or label it required. It felt like something too wild, too big for a label, and at the same time too fragile, too tender to bear any harshness.

He had heard Barricade's last words as he leapt from the hangar into the freedom of the open air. He had heard, and…fled. This was the third time, really, he had ducked those words. The first time, Barricade had been overcharged. The second and third—the cover itself spoke, if mute, and the breathless words hanging in the cold of space—he had flown from. Sooner or later, he would have to give an answer. He would have to say something. Sooner or later he wouldn't be able to joke his way out, or claim the mission or lack of time or that he himself had been overcharged or divert attention to sex. Sooner or later he'd have to stand on that plane and say…something.

Tell me you love me. Always, ALWAYS the unspoken demand in those admissions. I love you. Now you say it. I open myself to you; you do the same. Let us be open together. It was less a pledge than a demand for reciprocity.

Skywarp couldn't do it. He shouldn't have accepted the spark cover. Standing there, turning over the dented, scratched-up thing in his hands, his only thought had been awe at what it meant. He hadn't thought of his own part. He'd thought only how it would hurt Barricade to have this…beautiful, sweet, HUGE gesture rejected.

It would have been a kindness, he thought, now. A little pain then—and he'd've been gone during the worst of it (Skywarp you fucking coward)—was better than the pain of dragging it out. Better than letting false hopes that neither of them could realize start shaping themselves. It would be worse for Barricade now, thinking he'd gone a step further.

I care enough to know that I can never love you. Not the way you need. Not the way you deserve. Oh, little spike. I wish I could.

Why me? Why did he have to pick me? Why not Starscream, whose icy walls would have melted at the first warmth? Starscream at least deserved it.

It wasn't that Skywarp was blind to Starscream's flaws. Yes, his Trine mate was…overemotional and narcissistic and devious and a little elitist. But he was also loyal and intelligent and tenacious. If he wanted something, nothing could swerve him from his course.

And here was Skywarp, Swerved off course by his own past. His own knowledge of what he was capable of. His own Trine mate's judgment. No, he didn't deserve anything like Barricade's openness: and Barricade didn't deserve the horrors he'd bought into. What Barricade had fallen in love with (oh, Skywarp couldn't even think the phrase without a frisson of half-fear/half-aching longing)…was a lie.

He felt a wild, desperate wish for some catastrophe to befall him in space—a rogue asteroid or a random singularity. Something that would…end him and this pitiful indecision. Something, moreover, that would let him die…loved. Let it end before the inevitable happened, and Barricade was lost to him. And the 'he' that Barricade thought he was shattered beyond repair.

Tell me you love me…or let me go. Oh please, Barricade, he thought, desperately, don't push me to that decision. Please. His armor over his spark chamber contracted, jealously, over its new mass. It's a gift I don't want to have to give back, though I know I should.

Around him the subatomic particles swirled and pulled him onward, inexorably, into the heart of isolation.


	17. ReBerth

A/N: I think I might have a final total chapter count for you (y'all know I write waaaaaay ahead of posting, right? Because unfinished or abandoned fics make me sad to read and I don't want to make people sad …that way!) Looks like 48 chapters, give or take one or two, total. So settle in!

*****

When had his recharge berth gotten so big? Barricade flopped around on it miserably, his armor clattering against the metal expanse, seeming to echo across the empty room. Sprawled out he could touch the rounded lip all around the berth, but…nothing else.

He missed Skywarp. In so many ways. But right now he just missed the physical contact—the staticy fuzz of their combined EM fields, the knowledge that someone was there, a hand's-reach away. Just someone, something, touching him. He never thought he'd want, much less miss, being touched.

It was…so quiet, too. He missed the hum of Skywarp's larger engines, the soft cycling of his cooling respiration.

He rattled around on the berth again, unable to find a comfortable position, sighing with frustration. Should he call him? He had the comm freq. He wanted to call him. But he'd only been gone for a few cycles. It would seem really desperate if Barricade contacted him now. Needy. Clingy. No. And besides, Skywarp might be recharging. After a flight he probably needed the rest more than he needed to comfort a clingy little grounder.

Barricade jumped as he heard his door code open. He sat up, cycling his optics. His capacitor picked up as his optics showed him a familiar wedge-shaped bulk in the doorway. Hope exploded across his cortex. "Skywarp?" he whispered, excitedly. Back so soon?

A soft tenor laugh. "One day," Starscream said, "I shall become offended at how easily you confuse us."

Barricade sagged back on the berth. But then, "What—why—how did you get my recharge door code?" Of the thousand questions tumbling in Barricade's sleep-addled cortex, that was the one that rattled down to his vocalizer. Still, it was a place to start.

"Really, I imagine it should be obvious, Barricade. Skywarp gave it to me."

"Why?"

Starscream held up one hand for silence, and picked his way through the scattered mess on the floor of the berth. "Skywarp has insisted that you not be alone for your first recharge." He shrugged. "I gave my word."

"That means I don't get any say, doesn't it?" Barricade muttered.

"You certainly do not." Starscream settled himself on the berth next to Barricade, daintily. Just like Skywarp, he barely fit. Barricade scooted over, trying to give him room, but the berth was impossibly small for two. When it had been he and Skywarp, he hadn't minded (at all) the enforced proximity. It was a little…different with Starscream. He didn't think the bronze jet would attack him, but…it didn't feel the same.

"You were supposed to," Starscream murmured, "already be in recharge when I arrived."

Barricade didn't like the sound of that plan—waking up next to Starscream with no notion of how he'd gotten there? That didn't sound fun at all. "Sorry," Barricade muttered, "Guess I fragged that up."

Starscream pulled Barricade down on his back by one arm tire. "It is no matter," he said. "Now, what do you normally do?"

Ummmm, no. Not going to do that with Starscream. Yes, of course he'd interfaced with Skywarp's Trine mate before, but that was different. Skywarp had been right there. Or near enough.

"Skywarp told me to tell you it would be fine with him," Starscream continued, stroking his cool talons down Barricade's arm.

"I-I can't."

Starscream gave a playful pout. "Your chastity is as endearing as it is irritating."

"You can,..you can always go do that with someone else." He winced, hoping the jet didn't take it as an insult. He didn't mean it like that.

"This may come as a complete surprise to you, Barricade," Starscream said smugly, "but I am aware of that." He wriggled against the berth. "But thank you for reminding me."

Barricade floundered on the berth, trying to find a way to lay without touching Starscream. It was, he decided, finally, impossible. And made even worse by the soft motorized snicker from the jet. "I have," Starscream eventually whispered, "a considerable history of making other mechs restless."

That settled it. Barricade flopped on his back, shoulder in the jet's chassis. "Don't you miss him?" he mumbled.

"Of course, little Barricade. He is my Trine mate." Barricade couldn't tell how cutting the comment was supposed to be—we have something more than you will ever know: our Trine bond. Barricade had…no one. "Now, you are wasting all of this perfectly good worry. You should save it for the hot mission window. Mere transit is nothing worrisome at all. You do not want me to tell Skywarp you doubted his ability to fly, do you?"

Barricade writhed on the berth at the comment. Of course not. He trusted Skywarp. It was…just everything else in the universe he didn't trust. "You're right," he muttered, slowly dimming his optics.

"As you have yet to acknowledge," Starscream said, teasingly, "I always am."

Barricade woke up several cycles later, his face buried below the jet's cockpit, both of his legs thrown around one of Starscream's thighs. More than slightly compromising. The EM field was similar enough that he must have…gotten confused. Not quite the same, but similar. He tried to move slowly, hoping to disentangle himself without awaking Starscream, but one of his armor plates snagged against the jet's inner thigh armor.

"Mmmmmmm," Starscream purred, half awake. He smooshed Barricade back against his belly, sliding his interface hatch against Barricade's lower torso. "Are you certain you do not want to…?"

Barricade squirmed, freezing when his actions made Starscream sigh happily. "Just…trying to…not bother you."

"You are not bothering me," Starscream said, drowsily. "Well, not MUCH." He stroked one idle hand across the wing fairings on Barricade's back, before pulling the shoulders closer to his body.

"Don't want to bother you at all." The jet even smelled like his Trine mate. High grade external joint lubricant, heated by the same sort of engine. It was a little too close for Barricade's comfort. "Know you don't have to do this."

"I know that as well, Barricade," Starscream murmured, with the sense of a mech dragging himself unwillingly out of recharge. "Of course, I serve my own self interest. Believe me."

"How does this…?"

Starscream rolled onto his back, his spinal cables arcing over the rise of his engines. "Do you think I often get this myself? Someone who is not with me merely for an interface? It is sad that I have to borrow you from my own Trine mate, but that is what I am, pathetically, reduced to. Now," he moved, hauling Barricade up onto his torso, "You stay there, and recharge." He plopped a possessive arm over Barricade's shoulders, pinning him against the cockpit.

This was also different. Skywarp liked to be on top, his heavy weight a comforting crushing sensation on top of Barricade's frame, like a blanket made of trust and safety. He felt more exposed, draped over Skywarp's Trine mate like this, but the difference was good. It shouldn't be the same. If it was the same, they were really indistinguishable, and Skywarp was really nothing special at all.

Every cable in Barricade's body resisted that thought with howling outrage. Skywarp was special. There was no one like him. No one. Not even his Trine mate. Feeling a fuzzy sense of gratitude toward Starscream for pointing this out to him, Barricade dropped into another doze, his talons curving around a chest plate possessively.

*****  
He knew it was a dream, even as he dreamed it. Even as real as it felt, he knew it wasn't real. Because in the dream Skywarp said everything he wanted him to say.

_"I love you," Skywarp murmurs in his audio, his baritone voice sending delicious tremors across Barricade's sensornet, resonating in his knee stabilizers. "So much. You have no idea." _

_Barricade squirms, wishing his arms were long enough to wrap around the jet's torso. _(He knows this is a dream, but even his dream will not violate certain realities)._ He nuzzles his face into Skywarp's shoulder armor. He feels Skywarp sigh as heat against his wing fairings, the jet's hands solid and sure on his back. "Love you too," he murmurs, grinning against a sweep of collar armor as the arms tighten in response around him. _

_"I want to show you," Skywarp says, after a brief kiss on the top of Barricade's head. Somehow he avoids grating against any of the facial spires. _ (Another sign this is a dream). _Barricade looks up, worriedly _(aware that this is a dream, and like all dreams of his, destined to turn, abruptly, to horror). _He half expects the face smiling down at him to be decayed, or half blasted away, smeared with barnacles or peels of long-dried energon. But it is merely Skywarp's face, smiling down at him, as he actually has done. "Can I show you something?"_

_"Ye-ees," Barricade says, haltingly. Perhaps the turn to horror would happen next. Perhaps all of this perfection is just a ratcheting up so he had that much farther to fall. He braces himself, or tries to, against whatever was coming next. _

_Even so, he isn't ready. _

_Skywarp,_ in the dream, _pushes Barricade gently away. The smaller mech watches as the heavy armor protecting the spark chamber retracts. The dodecahedron of the spark chamber reveals itself, almost glowing, against the dark of the dream. And Barricade sees his chamber cover, set atop Skywarp's, shimmering back at him. He can feel the dark swirl of energy he felt before, but stronger now; can hear the hum of Skywarp's engines. _

_"Touch me," Skywarp says, laying back. "Touch it. It is us, do you understand?" _

_Barricade's talons tremble. Violet light seems to pour from around the edges of the chamber cover, a thick liquid, like purple honey. His smaller hands brush the edges of the chamber cover. It feels smooth, almost slippery, except where it has some ridges or grooves. Barricade leans closer. The grooves are writing: some script he does not know how to read. But he feels an ache in the back of his own spark chamber, a painful desperation to be able to read it. So much, so much he doesn't know. He feels pitiful. As though all of the secrets of the world are contained on that disk of metal. And his ignorance stands between him and all he ever wanted. _

_"Touch me," Skywarp repeats, in the dream. _

_"I am," Barricade says, almost startling himself out of the dream._ (He has spoken aloud, his voice catches in his audio like a mournful echo.) _But he feels his fingers pass through the metal of the spark chamber, and pass through Skywarp. Skywarp has become immaterial. A phantasm. A tissue-dream shredding away from him as he reaches. _

_"Please? I love you." A hint of panic in the voice. Pleading. Oh, Barricade thinks, and here is where it goes wrong. Here. He claws desperately, his talons clattering, locking around something, but it is not Skywarp. He knows it is not Skywarp. And his capacitor is racing the energon through its circuit at a speed that pounds in his audio. _

*****  
"Shhhhhh," he heard a voice, soft, in his audio, arms strong around his frame. "It was just a purge. That is all, little one." He lifted his head, numbly, weakly. Starscream, one anxious hand stroking down his back. "A bad purge," Starscream repeated.

"Couldn't touch him," Barricade said, wincing at how pathetic he sounded. "Couldn't reach him."

"It was a purge," Starscream said, again, patiently, rocking Barricade against him. "He will be back, soon, and you can touch him all you wish."

Barricade struggled to get his ventilation under control, embarrassed at the spectacle he was clearly making of himself. In front of the Air Commander, no less. It was easy to forget Starscream's rank—sometimes a little too easy—but it was always there, that fact, whenever Barricade needed to think less of himself. He pushed away. "Yeah," he mumbled, "M fine."

"Are you certain?"

"Yeah."

Starscream looked at him, dubious. Then pushed himself upright. "Skywarp," he said, with the tone of someone who knew exactly how manipulative he was being, "will be very upset if he hears you lied about being all right."

"Not lying. Stupid dream, that's all." Stupid dream of all my wants and fears, that's all.

Starscream pushed himself off the berth. "Unfortunately, I have a recon mission I need to fly in half a cycle. If you wish to co-recharge again, I suggest we do it in my recharge station? The berth is slightly larger."

"You don't have to. Only promised him one recharge cycle, right?"

Starscream sighed, picking his way over to Barricade's maintenance facility. "Yes, that is true. But that does not mean I cannot offer more if I wish to."

"I—I can't."

Starscream shrugged. "The offer is there."

"It's…not the same."

"Yes," Starscream said, poking through the bin for a cleansing rag. "That is, I believe, the point. Close enough that you did not feel utterly alone, but not so close that you did not suffer a little bit." There was something unutterably sad in Starscream's voice. "It is the way we have been forced to think."


	18. Calling

A/N:Yay! More Boring Meeting!! ^__~

*****

Barricade keyed the number to its very last digit, then hesitated. Was it too soon? It had been a whole solar. A bit more. Halfway through shiftcycle so Skywarp probably wasn't recharging: he'd hate it if he commed Skywarp and woke him out of recharge. Especially not to deal with his stupid clingy needy pathetic grounder who missed him terribly.

Still, Skywarp had more or less ordered him to use it. Right: he'd comm, and find out when would be good to comm next. Nothing wrong with a little check-in. That didn't sound too fretty. Or clingy.

He keyed the last digit.

"On," he heard a brisk voice reply. His tanks chilled. Had he input the wrong freq?

"Uh, Skywarp?" he said, hesitantly. He cursed himself: nice going, idiot. You comm him right when he's in the middle of something important. He doesn't have time to talk to you.

"Oh," warmth flooded back into the voice on the far end of the freq. "Little spike. Sorry, didn't check the incoming freq."

Barricade relaxed. A little. "Yeah, it's me. Just wanted to, you know," (hear your voice) "check in and stuff."

He could hear Skywarp's smile. "Still flying. Bored. Why didn't you call earlier?"

"I…uh, didn't want to wake you out of recharge."

"Wake me out of—oh I guess you don't know. Sorry, I forget sometimes." He sounded amused. Barricade felt…stung somehow. Yeah, another thing he didn't know. "We fly straight. I'll get there…hmmmm, next solar? Then I'll recharge."

That didn't seem possible. Or healthy. "You…really? You go that long without recharge?"

"High grade energon, little spike. Plus, we shut down nonessential systems to conserve." Well, that made sense, but Barricade still felt…a little stupid. "Sooooooo," Skywarp said, his voice turning sly, "How'd it go last night?"

Was this a trick of some sort? Honesty, Barricade decided. He hadn't done anything wrong. "Ummm, Starscream said you ordered him to stay with me, so he did. Did you?" Not like he didn't trust Starscream. Okay, he didn't, but the bronze jet hadn't done anything wrong that would justify why he'd make up a lie, and Barricade knew he wasn't hot enough that Starscream would suddenly just…invite himself over for cuddling.

"Oh good. He kept his word," Skywarp said. "Did you sleep well?"

Honesty? Time to put that to the test. No matter how mortifying. "Had a bad memory purge, but that's all." And…I dreamed you were being torn away from me. Nothing special. His capacitor stuttered.

"Ooohhhhhh, you okay?"

Barricade squirmed at his console at the concern in Skywarp's voice. Right. He was getting sympathy from Skywarp about a bad dream. With Skywarp's own history of them. "Yeah, fine."

"Did you tell Starscream what it was about?"

"No!" he said, a little too quickly, too late revealing he'd more or less given away what the purge had to be about.

He expected Skywarp to press the issue. Instead, the voice said, warmly, seductively, pouring like honey into his audio, "Did you interface with him?"

"No!" he barked, alarmed. He hadn't! And he'd been half asleep when his hands, and other parts, had…wandered.

Skywarp grunted, mumbling something about 'at least he didn't let me down.'

"I didn't, and I won't," Barricade said, hotly. Was Skywarp questioning his faithfulness, already? He almost felt like crying. He wanted to end the call, pretend he'd never been stupid enough to initiate it in the first place, but ending it right now…bad.

To his surprise, Skywarp laughed, that warm rumble he loved to hear. Loved even better to feel vibrating against him. "Not you, little spike. Starscream. He had orders."

Honesty. "Ummm, he did keep asking. Was he supposed to?" He didn't want to get Starscream in trouble, but he didn't want anything that happened while Skywarp was away to poison things. He'd rather Skywarp knew EVERYTHING and up front.

"That was up to him, but if you agreed, he was supposed to open a Trinelink to me."

"Ummm, why?" He knew this was some kind of link between them, but…?

"Silly spike! So I could play too. Feel everything he feels, that sort of thing."

"Really?" Barricade frowned. Maybe he shouldn't have turned Starscream down. It would have been…weird, but, well, it wouldn't be the first time interfacing with either of them had been weird. "That somehow seems…unsafe if you're flying?" Images of a linked-overloading Skywarp colliding with an asteroid filled his processor with worry and his tanks with guilt.

Skywarp roared with laughter. "No, it's safe. We do have autonav features, you know." He purred, "Primus, you're so sweet for worrying."

"Does—would he still do that? If I, uh…in the future?" Oh he was a little alarmed at the thoughts racing through his head. Would Starscream agree? Hi, you weren't good enough for me last night, but let's do it and by the way is Skywarp listening in? Still, his spike tingled with rising pressure just at the thought. And the missed opportunity.

"He'd better," Skywarp groused. "He didn't explain it to you, did he? Greedy little bastard."

No. In Starscream's defense though, "I, uh, really didn't give him a chance to." And even if Starscream had explained it, it sounded so weird and farfetched, would he have believed it? "So," he asked, very, very small, "You want me to?"

"Yes. Plain enough for all of your adorable little objections, little spike?" Skywarp teased. "You can also interface with anyone else you want. No sense you not having any fun while I'm gone. Onslaught's always up for some more, you know."

Barricade sat back, more than a little stung. If…Skywarp said he could sleep around on him…did that mean Skywarp intended to do the same? He felt his systems pulse in something like panic—Skywarp would replace him. Forget all about him. Just like he'd feared. Oh, you knew this would happen. You got your hopes up, you stupid, stupid mech. He can do so much better than you.

"Barricade?"

"Yeah." He swallowed the bitter taste in his intakes. Surest way to make that happen, he told himself, surest way to drive Skywarp away, is to act as pathetically desperate as you are feeling.

"Just saying, little spike: you don't have to suffer or anything because I'm not there." Oh, but I want to. Please. "Besides. Someone's got to keep your engines warmed for me when I get back."

"Okay," Barricade tried to inject a brightness he didn't feel at all into his voice. "Miss you, though."

"Oh, little spike. Miss you too. You have no idea." The last phrase filled him with an almost icy terror—the words from his memory purge. They seemed to ring in his cortex like an omen. He heard a distant bing. "Oh, slag. Got some astrogation I have to do now: can I comm back later? Now that I," he teased, "have your private freq?"

"Yeah," Barricade said. His processor already translated this for him: I'll call you back, don't call me again. Just wait. And wait. And then…never. His ventilation hitched. Still, don't act desperate. Don't. "Be looking forward to it." Oh, if he did. If only.

****

Barricade scrolled his datapad to the newest presentation awaiting them in yet another of Soundwave's interminable meetings. How Soundwave found the time to whip out multimedia bullet statement slides by the gross for every briefing was…either horrifying or impressive. He couldn't really decide. And he had other things he'd rather waste his processor space with. He opened the file. Whoa. This was going to be a marathon. He was glad he'd topped off his energon ration . Brawl, sitting next to him, groaned as his own datapad opened the file: he probably hadn't.

Bombshock cursed, eyes on his own datapad, scrolling to the section for his division. Last meeting had been Soundwave disseminating changes he wanted to see enacted: he was already (Barricade raced to find his section) expecting reports on results. Barricade decided that 'incremental' was going to be his preferred response. To be honest, he hadn't implemented ANY of them. Because they were stupid.

But Barricade wasn't stupid enough to tell Soundwave his ideas were stupid. He hoped Brawl would do that for him. Oh slag, how hard and how quickly boring reality came crashing back in on him.

He sighed, straightening himself in his chair as Soundwave swept into the room, his reflector panels spread behind him like he was some picture of magnificence. Barricade tried not to hate him: it's not his fault Skywarp left, he told himself. Still. It was a fight.

Soundwave droned through the preliminaries—and honestly, had he always had such a tedious voice? Barricade was digging his talons (already!) into his thigh cabling to stay awake when his private comm chimed.

"Hey little spike," Skywarp's voice purred in his ear. "Catch you at a bad time?"

There's never a bad time for you. "Soundwave just started the meeting."

"ANOTHER one? Primus, how you mechs ever actually get any work done, I'll never know."

"Still flying?"

"Sure am. And bored. You have no idea how bored."

"Want to compare?" Barricade felt himself smile.

"Ugh. No, you win. At least I'm going some place."

Barricade's grin grew until he was aware that Brawl was staring at him like he'd lost his higher processing capabilities. "Uh-oh," he said.

"What's up?"

"Uhhh, nothing. Just…Brawl's looking at me funny."

"Oh, you'll get better at not leaking emotion at subvoc. Starscream and I can nearly overload each other without the other batting an eye."

"Really?" Barricade said. He looked over at Starscream, who was idly rolling an input rod between his long talons. He wondered if he'd ever been in the same room when it had happened.

"Oh yeah. Apparently he has a thing for my voice." Don't blame him, Barricade thought. Hard not to notice his voice. Skywarp continued, "So, what's everyone up to?"

"We-ell," Barricade looked around. "Starscream looks bored. Bombshock looks pissed but that's pretty usual. Brawl looks…stupid. Bonecrusher keeps making stabby gestures with his tail at Soundwave when his back is turned…, Blackout is trying to stack the input rods into a pyramid. The usual."

"Usual sounds boring."

"Is boring."

"Remember that one time?" Like he could forget.

"Yeah, I think we made that dent in the table."

"MMmmmmm, wish we could make more," Skywarp purred. "Miss you."

Barricade squirmed, earning him another odd look from Brawl. But he couldn't help it. Skywarp's voice and the memory and the invitation…his spike cycled online just thinking about it. He didn't think language had a more erotic sentence than 'miss you.' "Miss you too," he whispered, as if anyone else could overhear.

"Want to know what I'd do if I were there, little spike?"

Barricade squeaked. He could figure it out. And it struck him there was no good answer to this. Answer yes and the rest of this meeting would be phenomenally uncomfortable. Answer no and…well, he didn't really mean 'no.' "Uhhhhh….?"

"That's not a no." No, it wasn't. "Well, first off, have I ever told you what my favorite part of your body was?"

"Think I can figure that one out," Barricade smirked. "Right?"

"Wrong. Though I like your spike, too." What? There was something attractive about him other than his spike? "You know that spot on your grille, center front, right where the fenders break. And you have a little air intake? So fraggin' hot."

"Really?" he squeaked. He felt his chest armor twitch.

"Ohhhh, really." A deep rumble. "Every time I have you on your back I just want to lick that air intake."

Barricade sucked in a gasp. Starscream shot him a curious look, raising one supraorbital ridge. Barricade quivered, almost feeling the warm soft moving pressure of Skywarp's glossa on his intake. He looked down his chassis, trying to even see it. He felt glowy and a little proud: he didn't think there was anything about him attractive. Much less 'hot'.

"And me, little spike? What's your favorite part." Oh Primus everything. From the barbed hands to the delicate rib struts to the way his more solid wingstruts folded against his back…the cockpit, the double jointed legs…. "Well?" Skywarp prompted.

"I'm thinking!" he said. "I, uhhh, I like…best? I like the feel of your armor." His breath left in a whoosh. True. Skywarp's armor felt completely different from anyone he'd ever felt—the matte black finish different from Starscream's sleek bronze metal. He could almost feel it under his talons. And the best part: there was so much of it. He sat up, feeling smug. This way he could like ALL of Skywarp without having to decide. Smart, Barricade. Finally.

Skywarp purred. Barricade could feel the vibration even through the comm freq. After a moment, he murmured, so softly that Barricade had to strain to hear it, "Primus I want you so badly."

Barricade's spike leapt to full pressure, oozing lubricant. All right, so there was a more erotic sentence than 'miss you.' "Me too," he replied, dreamily.

"Barricade!" Soundwave's voice snapped him out of his reverie. Barricade jumped.

"Incremental!" he blurted. "Progress has been incremental!"

"Oh," Soundwave subsided. "I am glad to see that you, at least, have put our improvements into practice."

"O—of course."

"You are a model to others," Soundwave praised.

Barricade ducked his head into his neck stabilizers, trying to ignore Bonecrusher's tail darting dangerously in his direction. "Just…ummm, part of my job," he said, wincing as Bonecrusher's tail tines fluttered in an unmistakable obscene gesture. He shrank back in his chair.

"I want you right now," Skywarp said, a little growl edging into his voice. "I want to feel your spike in me, Barricade. I want to run my glossa over your drivetrain tires, no…bite them. Just a little. I want to throw you on your belly and lick that space between your door wings til you can't stand it any more and beg to spike me."

Ummm, already there. Barricade squirmed in his seat, feeling lubricant leak around his spike seal.

Brawl tapped him on the elbow. "Hey, you comin' down with something? You're actin' kinda weird."

Barricade was feeling kinda weird too. "Fine," he mumbled back. Brawl gave him a suspicious squint, and edged away on his chair.

He could hear Skywarp laughing. "Sorry, little spike."

"No you're not," Barricade said, petulant. And frisky. And with absolutely no hope of relief for his friskiness. "You're not sorry at all."

"You got me. But I'm feeling salacious and unfulfilled and you should too."

"Salacious?"

"Are you making fun of me?"

"No…it's…just a weird word."

"Weird word," Skywarp grumbled. "Maybe you want more of a demonstration? Huh? You less of a words guy than action? All right," Skywarp didn't let him get a syllable in. "Make fun of my vocabulary, will you? How'd you like my highly educated glossa against your spike, huh? How'd you like that?" Barricade whimpered over the comm. "How'd you like me breathing against your thighs, your spike in my mouth, my hands squeezing against those little wrist tires of yours, huh? Would you like that?"

Barricade's backstruts bolted rigid, his door wings flattening against the chair's back. His ventilation stalled. Entirely. His spike cover autoreleased, his wet spike thumping against his interface panel. He banged his wrist on the table to try to cover the noise.

"Barricade," Soundwave admonished. All of the warm praise (he didn't really want anyway) already evaporated. Easy come, easy go.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Maybe not feeling so good?"

Brawl edged away a bit farther. From the corner of Barricade's eye, he saw Onslaught tapping a message on his datapad. He focused on that—a moment of complete and utter and boring normalcy—to try to bring his ventilation back under control. Soundwave shot him one last glare, his panels rippling in irritation, before turning back to slide number 136: waste management.

Barricade could hear Skywarp chuckling. "What a fritz-system he is! I can't even imagine him getting off—much less any mech willing to do the job, can you?"

Barricade chuckled back, pushing himself upright, slicking his hands down his armor, reaching for his datapad. All business. Yes. Make it through this meeting, even with his raging spike throbbing against his interface hatch. He could take care of it later. Awkward and uncomfortable and not the same at all, but he could do it. He spread his thighs so that nothing brushed against the interface hatch. He nodded at Brawl, who held up his datapad between them like it was some protection against contagion. Right. Waste management. A very hard topic to get worked up around.

"I bet he delegates," Skywarp murmured. "You, 'face him for me. I'm too important."

Barricade snickered. Brawl's fingers tightened around the datapad. Barricade ducked his head to his own pad. Long silence.

"What are you thinking…?" Skywarp asked, voice silky in his audiochan.

"Business. Stupid meeting."

Skywarp moued. "I have better things for you to think, little spike." Gulp. Not again. His spike was already aching just at the tone of Skywarp's voice. The jet continued, inexorable. "Like…how good you feel inside me. Like…did I ever show you the dents on my inner-thigh plates from your pelvic frame? Hard to see because we're both black, but…you can feel them." Barricade squirmed in his seat.

"Why are you doing this to me?" he squeaked.

"Because I don't like to suffer alone," Skywarp purred. "And I want you to remember that you're mine. No one else's."

Barricade's external coolant system cycled on noisily. He looked around, frantic: Onslaught was tapping another message, Starscream was looking at him as if trying to calculate his net mass. Brawl scooted over so far he fell off the chair, which thankfully diverted Soundwave's wrath onto the tank, who got a vicious dressing down about his inability to manage the simple task of Sitting in a Chair. As Soundwave raged, Bonecrusher's tale swipes became more agitated. Even Blackout, who normally stacked input rods into little towers or drew obscene cartoons on his datapad, was frowning.

"Yeah," he croaked. Brawl lumped himself back up on his chair, miserable.

"What do you wish I would do to you, more than anything?" Primus, Barricade found his entire body shivering. "I'll do it when I get back. First thing. Just to remind you."

"S-spike me?" Skywarp had only done it that once, in the repair bay, and even through the haze of pain and sensor block it had stuck with Barricade as somehow sweet and powerful and rare. And only the once—why?

Skywarp sucked in a breath, on his end of the line. When he spoke, his voice was shaking. "All right. It would have to be slow, though, okay? Not fast." Barricade's valve spiraled online.

"However you want it," he breathed.

Some sort of sound Barricade couldn't interpret. "For you, anything," Skywarp said. "But slow." Another pause, as though Skywarp were gathering himself up for something. "Nice and slow and gentle. No rush. Just my spike," a hitch in his breath—well, maybe he was getting as worked up as Barricade was and about slaggin' time, too!—"against your valve." Barricade squirmed, his hands clutching over his datapad. "Where are we?" Skywarp whispered, "Doing this?"

Where? Barricade didn't give half a motherboard where. He was beginning to not care that he was supposed to be paying attention to this meeting. "M-my recharge?"

Skywarp sighed, which seemed…weird but before Barricade could question, he spoke. "Okay, your recharge…and you're on your berth, right? And I've got your legs braced apart with mine—the top of my left thigh armor sliding against the underside of your right leg as I slowly push into you. I'm leaning over, so I can watch the expression on your face, the glow of your optics open in perfect trust, and my cockpit scrapes against your grille—not hard, but enough to leave a little scratch in the canopy that we'll both look at later and remember this time…."

Oh PRIMUS. Barricade's talons dented the thin metal of the datapad. His head lolled back with a groan. His entire interface system trembled on the verge of an overload. "Please…stop," he whispered over the audiochan. "I can't take anymore."

"Then you shouldn't ask for it," Skywarp muttered. Barricade flinched at the tone, as if he'd been struck, but when Skywarp continued, his voice was a soft and susurrous as before. "Your hands reach up against me, spreading out to my shoulders, your little talons working under the armor plates in my arms…do you remember that time I stripped off my armor for you?"

Barricade's whole body jerked at the memory, his head clanging hard against the back of the chair. Brawl jumped up, squeaking about nanovi.

Starscream pushed to his feet. "Soundwave, this meeting has gone on so long that Barricade has undercharged and become ill, doubtless from the effort of putting your 'improvements' into practice in his section." How smoothly the bronze jet lied was almost a beautiful thing to behold, Barricade thought, dimly, his entire sensornet taunting him with ghost sensations and memories.

Skywarp, in his audiochan, continued murmuring impossibly fine details about little nicks Barricade had in the front chevron of his grille, the sensitive spot in the mounting bracket of his wrist tires, the apparently 'adorable' sounds he made as he neared overload…. Barricade had the distinct sense he was making some of those sounds right now, as his entire frame quivered. The datapad slipped from his fngers. "Please," he begged, and heard it over both internal and external audio, but even he wasn't sure what he was asking for. He was hovering so close to an overload, so close…it was almost painful. Almost. He wanted it to stop. And he wanted it to continue.

He felt himself lifted and it took a few kliks before he realized that that was happening, actually, and not in his imagination—the same imagination that Skywarp was fueling with his sultry voice and irresistible images. The crossfeed on his sensornet dulled the rise of the interface signals enough that he could feel some sense of mortification.

"I," Starscream's voice vibrated against Barricade's frame, "shall take care of a fellow warrior and take Barricade, who is _ill_," he stressed, "to repair bay. The rest of you, please enjoy the rest of this incredibly, ahem, stimulating meeting." Barricade felt Starscream carry him out into the hall. "You," Starscream muttered, "Tell my idiot Trine mate that that was exceedingly unfair to you and he has much for which to apologize when he returns. And that I shall have to finish what he started here. Both about the meeting and," his hands on Barricade's frame became a little more…gropy, "you."

Skywarp snickered, overhearing everything through Barricade's comm. "You tell MY idiot Trinemate he better open a link."


	19. Over the Line

A/N Sorry for delay (anyone who actually noticed or cared ^^): wireless down chez moi so I figured at work I could do it…. And at work, our own IT people managed to blow The Whole Network. O_O So. Here, at last, and hopefully worth the delay….

Barricade shifted uncomfortably in Starscream's grasp. "I _can_ walk, you know," he grumbled. He was frisky, not crippled.

"I can walk faster," Starscream retorted, tartly. "Besides, carrying you, I can do this." He slicked one hand down the back of Barricade's leg. The smaller mech moaned.

"Not fair."

"If you choose to discuss what is fair or not, you may take it up with Skywarp, since your current predicament is entirely his doing."

In Barricade's audio, Skywarp chuckled. "_If you're waiting for me to apologize, little spike? Not gonna happen._" Skywarp didn't need to apologize. It wasn't his fault Barricade was so bad at keeping himself together.

"S'okay," Barricade mumbled, his head lolling somewhere near Starscream's left engine mount. "M fine."

Starscream thought he was talking to him. Damn. Barricade still wasn't used to this private freq stuff. "If you were so 'fine', perhaps you can explain that interesting performance? Had Onslaught not keyed me in, I would have thought you were having some sort of egregious malfunction."

Onslaught? Barricade had vague snatches of memory of Onslaught tapping away messages on his datapad. In his audio, another laugh from Skywarp, his voice warm with fond memory. "_Oh, yeah. Onslaught and I had some fun. Guess he would recognize it_."

Barricade's capacitor stuttered. Skywarp had done this with Onslaught? Well, of course, he snapped at himself. You think you're his first? No. You knew this. You knew you weren't his first: you know you're not as special as you think. Enjoy while you can, and don't ruin it.

"Ju-just can't hide that sort of thing very well," Barricade muttered, "sorry."

"_I love that you can't hide it at all_," Skywarp growled. Barricade's capacitor fired on again. That was what mattered, when it came to it.

"Well," Starscream was saying, "I do not think that it is worth your effort to learn to hide it. There is enough deception of that sort in the world as it is. But you might need to instruct Skywarp in some ground rules and boundaries for the sake of your dignity."

Dignity? Boundaries? He had none. Not where Skywarp was concerned.

Starscream paused, and Barricade heard a door code open and then in a great, swooping arc, he found himself tossed onto the big berth. The force flattened his wing fairings, making him wince. Before he could protest, Starscream loomed over him, red eyes blazing. "I should also suggest," Starscream said, "you be slightly more aware of how your little performances might affect others." He lunged down, pressing his mouth on Barricade's. Barricade squeaked.

"_Ah, it's about fraggin' time_," Skywarp murmured. "_Thought for a klik he wouldn't open the link on his end."_

"_Can—can you feel this?"_

"_Yes."_

Barricade opened his mouth under the probing, demanding kiss from the bronze jet. It felt a little…weird. Starscream wasn't his favorite mech, and, well, technically he was in his chain of command (Oh, right like that's stopped you—or him—before?), and Skywarp wasn't here, but in a way he was here and kind of apparently participating so it was really sort of Skywarp he was kissing, just…through Starscream and…yeah. Weird. Starscream kissed differently than Skywarp—while the black jet kissed possessively, demandingly, Starscream was more hesitant. Perhaps he was feeling weird, too? Whatever the cause, his glossa brushed against Barricade's own and the sensors lining his cheek plates in a series of feathery touches that fired up Barricade's already overtaxed sensornet.

In his audio, Skywarp purred contentedly. "_He is a good kisser, isn't he?_" Barricade mumbled something like an assent. "_Should I take notes_?" Skywarp teased.

"_Like your way." _

Skywarp growled softly. _"You say all the ridiculously right things, little spike."_

Starscream's kiss became more demanding, abruptly, pressing harder against Barricade's mouth, one hand reaching to stroke along his door wings. The way Skywarp did. Barricade twisted, turning his face away.

"_You don't like it?"_ Skywarp asked.

"_Like your way when you do it." _ That sounded…incoherent and a little petty. But it was..uncomfortable. Skywarp and Starscream should be different. Skywarp made another growling sound. Starscream broke the kiss, gently, ducking in one last time to brush his glossa against Barricade's lips.

"I was doing as he instructed," Starscream whispered, apologetically. "I did not mean to disturb you."

"Not disturbed."

"Good," Starscream said, bending down to lick at his headlamp. "Because I am not finished with you. And I have not had much opportunity to explore this." THIS, apparently, was Barricade's back, as he discovered when the large jet flipped him over onto his belly. His frame went rigid for a klik—several times, very bad things had happened from this position. He forced himself to relax. Skywarp was right here. In a way. This had to be okay.

"_You still there?" _ His voice sounded meek and small and a little afraid.

"_Yes, little spike. If you want him to stop, just tell him. Or me."_

He relaxed. Starscream's hands and mouth skittered along his back kibble, nibbling and pinching lightly at his door wings, their mountings, the join of his shoulder armor, down to the skirting plates over his hips. He found himself trembling at the jet's light, teasing, almost hot touches. This wasn't anything like his bad memories.

"_Feel good, little spike_?"

"_Yes_," he sighed. "_Not you though_!" he added, hastily. He didn't want Skywarp to think he was enjoying this more than he should. That he would prefer anyone else's touches to his.

Skywarp laughed. "_Enjoy it, little spike. I told him to do what he wanted, and I can feel…everything." _

"_Does it feel—is he enjoying it?"_

"_Starscream rarely does what he doesn't enjoy." _

The kisses and touches continued, turning to light tweaks or pinches alternating with soft little brushing caresses. The alternation was maddening, especially in Barricade's already aroused condition. He squirmed against the berth, his interface hatch bumping painfully against the cold metal. He whimpered.

"_Impatient, are we? Shall I tell Starscream to hurry it up?"_

"_No. 'm fine." _

"_Sure you are. Fine always wriggles like that." _Oh, right. I guess he could see as well. Barricade felt his cheek plates heat. He wished he knew more about this Trinelink thing. But he really wasn't up to expanding his knowledge right now. Not when he had a large jet slowly working his way down his back. Large taloned hands were already tracing down the swells and dips of Barricade's thighs.

"_Should I…be doing something?" _he asked. Starscream's talons brushed the underside of his interface hatch. He gasped, arching his back.

"_No. I think that's pretty much how he wants you."_ Skywarp said. _"I like seeing you like this, myself."_ Barricade's processor fuzzed at the thought. The thought that he, something he did, made Skywarp happy.

Barricade tried to push up, to turn over, especially as he felt Starscream's hands on his interface hatch, but the jet pushed him down, almost carelessly, with one hand between his shoulders. The thumb talons began stroking at the mounts of his doorwings. Ohhhhhh. He didn't have much choice but to melt back onto the berth, barely even noticing as his valve cover autoretracted under similar light talon-touches.

He shivered as the cool air of the room struck his overheated interface equipment, memory suddenly rushing back to him from those other times. He braced himself for a spike, telling himself, it was Starscream and the jet would be gentle and it would feel good, and even the helplessness wouldn't bother him. And Skywarp was right here. A voice in his ear, a presence near his spark. It would be all right.

He bounced off the frame in shock as he felt instead the warm probe of the jet's glossa. Skywarp laughed uproariously in his audio, a sound Barricade couldn't help but connect with the sudden rush of sensor input from his valve nodes. Starscream's one hand still squeezed his door-wings, tickling the mounts, his other pressed one o f Barricade's legs out of the way. He could feel hot ex-vents across his aft, down the backs of his legs. He felt…very, very helpless.

"_Feeling okay, little spike?"_

"_Awkward," _he managed. He didn't want to burden Skywarp with his pathetic past. "_Can't touch him back."_

"_I hold you down—you don't get to touch me either. Does that bother you?"_

"_No. Like it."_ He did. He loved the feel of Skywarp's weight pushing his wrist tires against the berth. He looked at his wrists right now, palms down and helplessly clutching against the smooth metal of the berth. Starscream probed deeper with his glossa, causing him to bolt rigid again. He fell back on his chassis, moaning. _"Just that—doing this?"_

Skywarp somehow understood what he was saying. _"He enjoys it, really. Trust me. I can feel what he's feeling. He's learned to get off on other mechs more than himself."_ Well, that sounded something kind of sad, but Barricade really wasn't in a position to analyze. He wasn't in a position to do anything, really, other than lie there, flat on his belly, while the bronze jet ran his glossa around the rim of his valve. He gasped as Starscream slipped one of his talons into the valve, twisting it as he pushed. He squirmed his hips against the berth, desperately, his spike releasing itself again from its housing and thumping against the berth as well. Alarm signals from his valve quickly subsided into pleasurable tingles.

Just like with kissing, the jet's glossa worked in little teasing brushes against the node clusters at the entrance, while his long talon stroked the uppermost node. Barricade could feel the charge building across his systems. His spike gushed more lubricant, sliding against the berth. He was aware that he was making a spectacle of himself, moaning and writhing like this. But Starscream's glossa had fixated on one node, rolling back and forth over it, building a charge that had his entire pelvic frame trembling, and his talon rolled against the side nodes of the valve in…just…such…a…way.

"_I love seeing you like this,"_ Skywarp murmured. _"Close, aren't you?"_

"Yes," he managed to gasp, aloud, losing track of his vocalizer channels. He could feel Starscream's snicker as a vibration against his valve. The extra stimulus forced the charge in his valve nodes—he cried out, thrashing against the berth, knocking himself in the back of the head with one of his own upper arm tires in the frenzy of his overload. His sensornet blossomed white, waves of almost delirious intensity sweeping over him. His valve rippled against the talon inside it, squeezing blissfully against it. He shuddered. Oh this felt so good.

He heard his ventilation loud in his own audio—big gulps of air to cool his systems—as he cycled slowly out of his overload. He felt a sudden weight on his back, flattening his wing fairings again, and then a lurch as he was seized by the jet, his back crushed against Starscream's cockpit, the jet nuzzling against his throat. Starscream stroked one arm down Barricade's body, toward his spike, which stung in the sudden exposure to air. Starscream's glossa tickled against his neck cables, his audio. He heard the slide of armor against armor over his own gulping ventilation, as the jet wrapped his hand around Barricade's spike.

Starscream squeezed the spike, his talons tightening and loosening in some complicated rhythm that sent absolute squeaking shivers of delight across his sensor net. He felt his lubricant squish between the jet's fingers, making a wet sliding sound that seemed to go straight from his audio back to his interface sensors.

"_You like this?"_ Skywarp purred in his audio again. Barricade nodded, before realizing that that didn't travel over the audiochannel. He heard Skywarp laugh. "_Primus, you're adorable."_

"_Are you telling him to do this?"_

"_No. Just doing what he wants. I am, however, taking notes." _Barricade could hear the grin, and the promise behind it made him quiver against the bronze jet's cockpit. "_You are so hot right now…." _His voice sounded raw with lust. Barricade wormed his hands free from Starscream's pinning arms, wanting to try an experiment. He ran one hand up Starscream's forearm, trailing his talons between the barrels of the chain gun.

"_Oohhhhhhhhhh," _Skywarp gusted over audio. Barricade grinned. He bent over, nipping at the armor plate, licking into the elbow joint. He felt Starscream shudder underneath him, even while the jet's hand kept up its insistent work against his spike. Better yet, he heard Skywarp moan. He twisted farther around, worming his talons under the heavy plates on the Seeker's upper arm. He could feel Starscream's chassis heave in response, could close his eyes and imagine it was Skywarp. Very easy to do considering Skywarp was moaning in his private audiochan.

Starscream shifted, pinning Barricade in place, firmly. Barricade squeaked, as Starscream's hand moved a bit more aggressively on his spike, continuing the squeezing, but stroking up and down against the sensor nodes. He heard his own gasping breath and the slick slide of the jet's talons over his spike.

"_We," _Skywarp growled, _"want to watch you overload." _ Barricade dropped his head back against the jet's chest-armor, his chassis struggling to in-vent under Starscream's tight grip. He felt a nip on one of his shoulder tires, jarring his attention away from the rising charge in his spike.

Barricade's wing fairings shifted across the jet's chest armor, sending little judders of sensation through the sensitive mounts, as he raised his head, with an effort, straining to look down over the swell of his chassis and Starscream's pinning arm. He saw the jet's forearm first, twitching in short, quick movements, the wrist adding a twist of the talons against his spike. They couldn't mean they wanted him to…?

His spinal cabling went rigid, arching him up off Starscream's chassis, as his overload hit him, his spike nodes vibrating with their over-charge against the jet's talons. He felt the hot rush of his transfluid race down his spike, then spatter in droplets across his chassis. He guessed he should feel embarrassed, or at least filthy, but he was too busy trying to cool his systems from overheat, his entire frame trembling from the overload itself, and from Starscream's talons rubbing, slowly, almost languorously, along the spike. He twitched with every slow twist of the jet's wrist.

"_What you—what you wanted?" _he gasped over the audiochan, his body still jerking to the bronze jet's expert touch.

A long silence, long enough that he dropped to a subroutine and checked the connection. No, he was still there.

"_Take him,_" Skywarp's snarl startled Barricade. _"Take him for me. Please, little spike?"_

"_W-why?" _He was already moving, obedient, twisting out of Starscream's arms.

"_I don't have his tolerance for being held at the brink like this," _ Skywarp said, his voice somehow urgent, almost as if he were in pain. Barricade didn't stop to think about how he was supposed to get the jet, who was twice his height and how many times his mass? to do anything. He scrambled around, pushing Starscream down, slithering against the cockpit and the twinned plates protecting the jet's interface hatch. He looked up at Starscream, considering for a klik. The thought of the urgency in Skywarp's voice decided him on the quickest method. He snatched open the interface hatch, his hands almost frantic to release Starscream's spike from its housing. The jet pushed himself up, half-seated, as Barricade took the spike into his mouth.

"_Oh Primus,"_ Skywarp breathed. _"Barricade, don't have to do this."_

"_Not as good as he is," _Barricade muttered. His mouth closed around the spike, his glossa exploring the convoluted, twisting shapes that made up the spike, questing for the slight tingle that indicated sensor nodes.

"_Don't compare yourself," _Skywarp managed.

Barricade looked up: Starscream was looking down at him, lips parted, sucking in vents of air with each pull Barricade made against the spike. He felt tension thrum through Starscream's legs—they went rigid, and then to the point of quivering. He could feel the charge teetering on the brink, he could taste the ozonized lubricant on his glossa. He whimpered at the feel of the spike in his mouth, thinking as hard as he could of Skywarp: how the black jet would feel. How badly he wanted Skywarp to overload.

Skywarp was openly moaning in his audio, rattling off a list of delirious adjectives. Starscream's hand brushed against Barricade's head, one shoulder tire. Barricade shuttered his optics, concentrating on the slide of the spike against his glossa, the delicious trembling of Starscream's thighs under his hands.

Starscream dropped his head back, crying out. His hips jumped off the berth, the tensed thighs jumping into action, and Barricade felt the rushing tingle of the nodes overcharging before the jet's transfluid shot into his mouth. Skywarp filled his audiochan with a long sound like a howl. Barricade himself almost purred with contentment, swallowing the fluid, licking his glossa along the underside of the spike as he did, enjoying how Starscream's body jerked with each lick.

"_You,"_ Skywarp said, raggedly, "_are better at that than you think_."

"_Fastest way," _Barricade said, simply. He hadn't liked the almost-pain in Skywarp's voice. He didn't want to think of Skywarp hurting, and on his account.

"_Not complaining, little spike,"_ Skywarp said. _"Just…know what that takes out of you." _

In front of him, Starscream struggled to sit up. "Am I allowed to speak, now?"

Skywarp chuckled in Barricade's audio. _"Tell him no."_

"Uh, Skywarp says no."

"Skywarp," Starscream said, pettishly, "Barricade has not yet developed the sense to know when you are merely being obnoxious."

Skywarp laughed, "_Okay, he can speak."_

"_You told him he couldn't?" _

"_I wanted to make it as much like…," _Skywarp faltered, for once at a loss for words, "_so you could pretend it was me." _

Barricade's spark seemed to pulse at the words. "_I did," _he whispered, as a confession.

"_Bad time to say this, little spike?"_ The pulse died in his spark, and Barricade felt the cold clutch of fear.

"_What?"_ He braced himself against a hundred bad, terrible, awful things it could be.

Skywarp's voice was urgent, hurried, as if he didn't trust himself to get the words out. _"I love you." _ The comm cut off abruptly.

Barricade dropped back on his aft on the floor, stunned. He could taste the tang of transfluid in his intake, lubricant sticky on his lips, but his entire system felt overclocked, and unable to process anything. Starscream pulled himself to the edge of the berth, eyeing him, a bemused smile on his face. "I told you so," Starscream said.


	20. Memory Games

A/N Remember how I kept telling you story takes a darker turn? Uhhhh yeah. This week and…two weeks from now, warnings for hard dub/con. Please don't if this will trigger.

Skywarp hit the distal perimeter markers right on his calculated schedule. Why did he still feel, then, a twinge in his capacitor? He's your Trine mate, he told himself. He is not the enemy. You've plenty of actual enemies, political and personal. You can trust your Trine. He'll be upset at first, yes, but he'll get over it. He'll come around.

But Skywarp knew he wouldn't. He knew it for a hopeful lie he clung onto with more desperation than sense because his fragile desires bruised so easily against the hard truth. Thundercracker believed that air frames should be with air frames. Thundercracker also believed in nice clean black and white lines, order and neatness. Clean. Straight.

Sterile.

The chaos and mess that had pretty much…always been Skywarp he had tolerated. Within limits. And Skywarp was flying headlong into those limits right now. So perhaps it was right to feel a shiver of concern. But why did it feel, suddenly, like he was being crammed into a box much too small for him?

He shifted forms, throwing off velocity as he entered the open hangar door of the aerial base. Part of Thundercracker's obsession with order: aerial bases were airframe only, beyond a handful of support mechs. A true mixed-forces base he'd never experienced.

Skywarp's feet hit the deck more heavily than he'd calculated. His energon reserves were lower than he'd thought. He felt his stabilizers shake from the lack. And managed, from somewhere, to find a smile for Thundercracker.

"Good flight," Thundercracker said. It was a traditional greeting, but normally it was a question. Not now: it was a good flight, or Thundercracker didn't want to hear or know about it. Didn't want to mar his clean lines.

So Skywarp merely nodded, adding, noncommittally, "Long."

"It is a distant sector, the Nemesis." Dancing around each other, already. This, Skywarp thought, did not bode well.

"Yes." The moment stretched. Skywarp could feel his Trine mate's optics on him, searching for…something.

"You are undercharged."

"Yes," Skywarp kept his voice neutral. He was too tired for this. Not right now. And he missed Barricade so fiercely it felt like a hole burning its way through his chassis. Thundercracker laid an arm over his shoulders. It should have felt warm and welcoming. Instead it merely felt like dead weight.

"Come," Thundercracker said. "Let's get you some energon before we…discuss matters."

Skywarp closed his optics for a long moment, letting the energon wash through his primary systems like rosy fire. His secondary systems ached for it, but he knew, from long experience, to take it slowly, let the energon cycle through before he took more. Still, it was always a little alarming to see his hands shake, holding the ration.

He flinched, as Thundercracker began scrubbing his seams with a wire brush. In flight, the protective grease had gone dry and cakey, and part of the post-flight process involved sloughing it away. Skywarp thought of Barricade's small talons, reaching into those seams in his plates, his brow crest furrowing in concentration, determined to do a good job. He ran a hand absently over the leg Barricade had greased, the smaller mech's touches like ghosts in his circuits. He could still barely admit it to himself, but he did love him. How else could you respond to someone who so willingly opened himself up to you, time and again?

"Too rough?" Thundercracker asked.

"No. Just somewhere else with my head, I guess," Skywarp said.

Thundercracker sighed. "Always scattered, aren't you, Skywarp?" He bent lower, the brush scraping into one of Skywarp's hip plates. "You know lack of focus is one of your big problems."

"I know," Skywarp said, meekly. He hated this. Hated how easily he turned into…this. Starscream he could argue with, joke with, throw around, wrestle with. Interface his brains out—as if Starscream had any brains to begin with. Thundercracker, no. With Thundercracker he always turned into this limp, sodden, meek little thing. Afraid of speaking his own mind. Afraid of tearing apart the Trine by daring to disagree. Afraid of, most of all, his own reactions.

"You're unhappy," Thundercracker murmured, over the brisk whsk-whsk of the wire brush. "I can tell." There was no sense in arguing. "Is the Nemesis assignment that bad?"

No, in fact it was wonderful. A long investigation, trying to solve the problem of the poor performance record coming from the ship and rippling across the sector. He had at least a megacycle of work to do there, which in his mind meant—a megacycle before he had to think of any sort of future. A delirious megacycle with the little grounder. Maybe they'd be sick of each other by then, hate each other even, but at least they'd have a megacycle to find out, rather than being torn away with all those questions unanswered. There was nothing more depressing, Skywarp thought, than possibilities cut short.

"It's fine. I can handle it," he replied.

"Nonsense." Thundercracker put down the brush, his arms curving around Skywarp's neck. "You can tell me."

"Nothing to tell." Skywarp shifted uncomfortably on the berth. Thundercracker ducked his head down, nuzzling against Skywarp's audio.

"I miss you so much when you're gone," Thundercracker murmured. "You and Starscream both." His hands trailed down Skywarp's front, talons skimming over the armor plates. Skywarp brought a hand up, curving over his Trine mate's blue forearm.

"Missed you, too," he said, numbly. Knowing what was coming. Powerless—already—to resist. Not if he wanted to keep his secret. Not if he wanted to keep Barricade safe. At least for a little while. He had no delusion he could keep the secret forever. It offended his sensibility of what a Trine should be to have to keep anything secret. But it was too precious, too fragile right now. Or so he told himself.

"Kiss me? Please?" Thundercracker asked, his voice like silk.

Skywarp turned his head, his mouth meeting Thundercracker as the blue jet rose up further on his knees, pushing Skywarp down onto the berth. Thundercracker's mouth moved on his, his labial plating catching at Skywarp's in needy little pinches. The blue jet whimpered, crawling over Skywarp's body, hands pressing into his shoulders. Skywarp stroked his Trine mate's back, long talons gentle on the engines and the broad metal of the mount. Thundercracker pushed against him, hands coming up to cup his helm as the kiss slowly got more aggressive, his glossa dipping first hesitantly between Skywarp's lips, then more confidently, forcefully, until Skywarp found himself moaning, his body shifting under his Trine mate's weight.

"It's so lonely out here," Thundercracker said, softly, stroking the sides of Skywarp's face. "I have no one."

"You can," Skywarp said, his optics lowered, stroking his Trine mate's shoulders. "You could have anyone you wanted."

Thundercracker shook his head. "You know that's not appropriate," he said. "Seekers belong with Seekers." He stroked his hand down Skywarp's side, either not feeling Skywarp tense underneath him or attributing it positively to his touch. "Have you been keeping Starscream out of trouble while you're there?"

"As much as I can," he responded, carefully. "As much as anyone can."

Thundercracker purred. "Good. He needs someone to keep him in line, doesn't he?" Skywarp thought Starscream managed fine on his own. He really didn't want to get drawn into this gambit of Thundercracker's—either start an argument now, or agree and have it thrown in his—and Starscream's—face later. Skywarp shrugged noncommittally, trying to distract his Trine mate by teasing his talons along his audio.

Thundercracker tilted his chin, tilting his head to expose the cables of his throat. Skywarp lifted himself up, his mouth to the gap in the armor, glossa probing against the cables. Thundercracker whimpered against him, talons squeezing into his arms. "Need you," Thundercracker pleaded.

Skywarp responded by reaching one hand toward Thundercracker's interface panel. The blue jet jerked at the touch, as if startled, but relaxed back down, letting Skywarp open it. His spike extended, the cover whisking itself aside in a hurry to get out of the way. Skywarp wrapped his long talons around the spike.

"Yes," Thundercracker breathed. He lifted his hips, his spike sliding in Skywarp's space-cold grip, lubricant coating the black jet's fingers. "Please," he said, "Oh Primus, Skywarp."

Skywarp knew what he wanted, and opened his own interface panel, releasing his valve cover. Thundercracker slid his spike into him with a sigh. Skywarp shuttered his optics, praying Thundercracker wouldn't come for another kiss. This was…too much. More than he could handle. It felt like a betrayal, to have someone else's spike inside him. Which was, he knew, ridiculous. Thundercracker was his Trine mate and he'd had Starscream more than enough times back on the Nemesis. But those had been fun and this was something earnest and verging towards the darkness that Skywarp desperately wanted to push away.

He shifted his thighs further apart, letting his Trine mate sink his spike deeper into him, giving in without really knowing why. Simply that he had to. Thundercracker's hands curled around his shoulders, his vents hot against Skywarp's chassis, his eyes probing into Skywarp's. "Beautiful," Thundercracker murmured. "So beautiful, Skywarp." His hips picked up their pace against Skywarp's, the hands tightening, talons digging into Skywarp's armor. Whatever else he might have wanted to say got lost in a rising moan, ending with a shudder as he overloaded into Skywarp's valve.

Skywarp felt…nothing.

He forced himself to kiss Thundercracker, the way he knew the blue mech liked. He cared that much—didn't he?—to want to please his Trine mate. And it wasn't Thundercracker's fault, after all. Thundercracker kissed him, eagerly, his glossa warm and earnest. Thundercracker pulled away, gently, ducking back in for another shy kiss. "So good to me," he murmured. "So good, Skywarp."

Skywarp managed a smile. "Anything for you, Thundercracker." He heard the mistake as soon as the words left his vocalizer. Thundercracker smiled down at him.

"Anything." He hooked his talons under Skywarp's clavicular struts, heaving him over as he rolled onto his back, wrapping his long legs around Skywarp's waist. "You know what I want."

Skywarp hiccupped. Yes, he knew what Thundercracker wanted, just as he knew he had no choice. Thundercracker bumped his pelvic plating, and Skywarp obediently shifted his hips, sinking his spike into Thundercracker's valve. "Only you," Thundercracker said, his hands coming up to stroke Skywarp's face. "Only you."

Skywarp squeezed his optics shut, grinding the plates together as he started moving, slowly, rocking his spike in Thundercracker's valve. He couldn't feign his way through this one. Even if he'd wanted to. His spike, his sensornet, both flared with a conditioned response. He heard a growl start back in his intake, rippling through his vocalizer as his talons sank into Thundercracker's wing.

The blue jet moaned. "Yes. Don't you wish it were Starscream, here? Don't you, Skywarp?" He paused, wincing, as Skywarp raked his talons across his chassis. Shut up, Skywarp thought. Shut up shut up shut up I don't want this I don't want to think I just want to get through this get it done get it finished get it over. Skywarp pushed his spike harder into the valve, rising up on one knee for leverage. He felt his mouth curl into a snarl of contempt. At himself.

"Remember?" Thundercracker murmured, tracing his hands down the outer contours of Skywarp's bracing arms. "Remember the games we used to play?"

"Weren't…games," Skywarp mumbled. Yes, he remembered. Too well. Every circuit of his frame remembered those 'games.' Thundercracker ordering he and Starscream into little scenarios, innocent at first, slowly growing darker, edgier, more…damaging. Starscream begging him to stop, begging Thundercracker to stop; then, just begging. Oh he'd ruined Starscream. He'd helped. For megacycles he'd told himself he was not to blame, it was really Thundercracker, but…he'd seen beyond that. Impossible not to. Impossible to deny, as well, the long, well-orchestrated conditioning of his own body. To where he couldn't spike…anyone without it taking over. The hot rages, the desire—no, the NEED—to inflict pain. To see sparks of fear in the optics of his partner.

"Come on," Thundercracker coaxed. "You haven't forgotten. Starscream hasn't."

"Shut up," Skywarp snapped. He backhanded Thundercracker, his barbs ringing off his Trine mate's audio. He stopped himself, mid thrust, hanging over the blue jet. "Shut up," he repeated, but his tone was pleading now.

"Yes," Thundercracker said, rubbing his injured jaw, pausing to show Skywarp the leaking fluid, before he licked it off his own talon, optics half-lidded in desire. "Exactly like that. More."

Skywarp growled in frustration. "No." Not this time. Not any more. He would fall if he played this game. The only choice, the only chance he had was to refuse to play. He tried to pull his spike from the valve, but Thundercracker had locked his double-jointed legs around his hips.

"Yes," Thundercracker said, blandly. "You know you want it."

"I do not." Skywarp struggled, bracing one arm on Thundercracker's shoulder, pushing in vain to dislodge his spike.

"You do, and you need it like this. And I need you." Thundercracker's deep voice was seductive. "Come now. Be good."

"I don't want to 'be good'." Skywarp pushed harder. "Let me go." He hadn't had nearly enough energon: his power systems were barely above nominal functionality. He was weak—physically as well as emotionally right now, and Thundercracker was taking full—and knowing—advantage.

Thundercracker's hands clamped on his wrists. "No." His voice was mild, but there was no denying the force in his grip. Skywarp reared back, but Thundercracker jerked him off-balance, his cockpit banging against his Trine mate's. Thundercracker snarled and the two began fighting in earnest. This wasn't like with Starscream, playful wrestling, as many licks and caresses as blows. This was a contest held in dead silence, with a burning intensity. Skywarp struggled, but Thundercracker's grip on his wrists prevented any of his blows from having real force. The blue jet laughed at him, tumbling with him onto the floor, his legs still locked around Skywarp's hips.

"So good to me," Thundercracker said, nuzzling against him even while his hands sank into Skywarp's forearms. "Giving me exactly what I need." He ground his hips against Skywarp's, and the black jet gave a sound like a sob as, in spite of himself, his spike's nodes crackled with a rising charge, a slide of lubricant—conditioned, he told himself, pitifully. Conditioned, but undeniable.

He twisted his wrists, spinning his hands to grab at Thundercracker's forearms, digging his talons in under the armor, gritting his teeth in a black grin as Thundercracker flinched from the pain. He drove his hips against Thundercracker's hard enough to feel the enamel chip. "You want this?" he hissed, through his teeth. "You want this? Is this how you want it?"

His spike pounded into Thundercracker, lubricant oozing out from around the rim of the valve, heated with friction. He lifted Thundercracker's pelvic frame bodily with every thrust, lying on his back, his talons sunk into his Trine mate's forearms, his eyes spiraled small and furious.

Thundercracker arched above him, making a little 'eh' with every thrust against him, looking down his chin at Skywarp, his eyes lidded and intent. He trembled, his thighs quivering around Skywarp's surging waist, his own grip slipping against the black jet's wrists. He bucked, with force that nearly unseated the spike from Skywarp's mounting brace, as he overloaded, his clutching valve forcing Skywarp's own rush.

Skywarp yowled, half in pain from the sudden shock of Thundercracker's buck. The transfluid raced up his spike, a wash of heat that burned like some kind of shame as his Trine mate's valve rolled its mechanisms against the spike, coaxing the fluid out eagerly.

Thundercracker collapsed on top of him, nuzzling in his neck. "Yes," he murmured into Skywarp's throat. "You're mine. Always. You and Starscream, mine forever."

Skywarp turned his face to one side, trying to summon an image of Barricade. And failing.


	21. Desire Betrayal

A/N Okay, a little break from the dark (for a while) this is...kinda pervy. Sorry. o_O

Barricade finally admitted he was a little worried. He hadn't heard from Skywarp in over a solar—not since the comm had died after Skywarp had said…_that_. Barricade had floated for cycles in stunned, blissful silence, clutching the words to him, replaying them over and over in his processor. If Starscream hadn't reacted, he would almost have doubted he'd actually heard them.

But now…silence. And it was such an awkward cut-off. Barricade didn't know what to do. He wanted to talk to Skywarp—even about random nothings: what he was up to, if he met anyone he knew from before, maybe tell him about Brawl getting overcharged and yelling at a bulkhead. But he didn't want to be pushy. if he commed him, would it look too much like he wanted to hear those words again? (And he had to confess oh, how badly he did want to hear them. Again and again and again. But he didn't want Skywarp to feel pressured to say them.) He agonized, and finally decided that the smart thing, the tactical thing, would be to talk to Starscream about it. Maybe he had spoken to him. Maybe he could, if necessary, speak to Skywarp for him, explain that he just…really missed him and wanted to talk.

And maybe…interface through the link. Barricade felt kind of guilty about that desire, too, like it wasn't right to miss that part of him. But, he told himself, I miss everything. Listening to his stories, being squished under him during recharge, getting teased by him…all that as well. It wasn't wrong to miss that, as a part of the whole, was it?

Starscream had told him he could just show up…whenever, so when his shift finished, Barricade logged out of his console and headed to the A-level recharge corridor, to Starscream's recharge.

The door was coded unlocked. Barricade chimed him anyway, and got a green enter-light. Good. He wasn't busy, or recharging. Maybe he'd be open to the idea….

He stepped through the door and froze: Starscream lay sprawled, belly-first, on the berth, one arm twisted up behind his back to the point where the servos whined audibly. Onslaught lay over him, pounding into his valve, growling.

Oh this was like a bad flashback. "S-sorry," he stuttered. "I'll—uhhh, come back some other time."

"Don't go," Onslaught said. His cool voice sent absolute shivers of memory through Barricade's sensor net, that picked up on the tingles from walking in on such an…interesting scene. "Starscream wants you to stay. Don't you?" He twisted the jet's wrist. Starscream winced.

"Yes," the jet gasped. "Stay. Ahhhhh!" Onslaught raked his hand down one of the bulging engines.

"Why do you want him to stay?"

Barricade inched back to the door. No, this felt weird. He didn't want to stay.

"Because you want him to," Starscream whimpered. "I want…what you want."

Onslaught stopped, his spike nearly out of the Seeker's valve. "Wrong answer."

"Uh…I really don't want to stay," Barricade said. "Really." This felt beyond wrong. Like something he shouldn't be witnessing.

"Please," Starscream said. "Stay." Barricade hesitated.

"See?" Onslaught said. "He wants you to stay. And he wants you to stay," he paused, beginning to slide his spike slowly in and out of the jet's valve, causing Starscream to shudder and moan, "because he gets off on being watched. Don't you?"

"Yes," Starscream sighed, rocking his hips against the berth in time to Onslaught's slow movement.

It was pretty hard to not want to watch, Barricade thought: Starscream's optics, half-lidded, his entire frame shifting sinuously to Onslaught's pace, his one free hand kneading at the bare metal of the berth. Onslaught, leaning over him, braced his weight on the pinned wrist, knees pushing the jet's thighs apart, optics glowing with lust. Is that—is that what he looked like when he was with me? Barricade thought.

"You do, don't you," Onslaught purred. "You so get off on it. Thinking about how you make everyone around you feel." Starscream moaned again. Barricade felt his spike tingle, releasing lubricant. This felt awkward but…so hot. He would swear he felt his spike throb in time to Onslaught's slow thrusts.

"Pity," Onslaught said, leaning closer, his winch banging against the jet's engines, "No one wants you for you. Just what you can do for them. Political advance. Protection. Favors. Just plain fucking. It's never you they really want."

Starscream's optics shuttered closed, hard, and his moan changed to a high, thin keening sound, almost like he was crying. Barricade felt his talons clench together, his core heat rising in embarrassment and sympathy. Why would Starscream let Onslaught talk to him that way?

"True?"

"Yes," the jet sobbed. His hips squirmed backward, grinding against Onslaught's pelvis.

"You know what else? What do you think Barricade came here for. Not about you, either, is it? Does it get you hot that he's watching you? Does it get you off that he'd rather you were Skywarp? It's not you he wants. You know that." Barricade was frozen in shock. It sounded so brutal. And so true. And so…awful.

Starscream's chassis started shivering, as if he were restraining vicious tears. Barricade couldn't take any more.

He launched himself at Onslaught, catching him around the shoulders and driving him back, away from the Seeker, riding the larger mech's falling body until Onslaught's shoulders hit the metal of the berth. "Don't talk to him like that!" Barricade screamed. "Don't you dare!" He found his talons balled into fists, striking furiously at the Combaticon's face, his knee on Onslaught's pelvic frame.

A mass shifted behind him. Long bronze arms wrapped around his body, pulling him away, gently, backwards, until his central dorsal rested against a familiar feeling mound of a cockpit. He swung his talons in vicious claws in the growing distance between him and Onslaught. "Barricade," Starscream said, soothingly, "It is all right. Do not hurt Onslaught."

"Huh," Onslaught scoffed, pushing up to his knees and rubbing his face. "Hurt me? Not a chance."

"Don't you talk that way to him!" Barricade snarled. Starscream rocked him back and forth, ignoring Barricade's talons scrabbling against his forearms.

"Barricade," Starscream repeated, "There is no need for this. No need."

"How can—" Barricade hiccupped with emotion, "How can you let him talk to you like that?"

Onslaught snorted. "He wants me to, Barricade."

Starscream sighed, the vent of air warm against Barricade's shoulders. "It is true."

"But…?" Barricade squirmed in the jet's arms. Starscream squeezed him tighter, for a klik, nuzzling against his wing fairings, before releasing him.

"But," Onslaught mocked, "You like the idea of playing with powerlessness, Barricade. Some mechs need it." Barricade thought back to the time Onslaught had taken him in the shower and…it did seem like it was just a game. He felt doubly mortified—that he'd been playing at something he didn't understand and that he'd just…humiliated himself and ruined what Starscream wanted.

He stood, awkwardly, on the berth, looking at his hands. He could hear the thrum of the jet's main power core behind him; he could feel Onslaught's optics on him through his visor. He raised his own gaze and saw only Onslaught's still extended, glossy spike. A palpable sign of what he had intruded on. "Sorry," he mumbled. Fuck everything up, even when you're trying to help, he told himself. Really, like the jet would even want your help? "Just go now," he said, picking his way over the jet's long thigh.

"I do not think so," Starscream said, raising his leg between Barricade's as he tried to climb over. Beside him, Onslaught settled down on the berth, watching, amused. Barricade looked up. The jet's face was unreadable—as if it had half-frozen into despair and was only slowly thawing. "You fought for me," Starscream said, softly.

"Stupid. Sorry. Ruined it for you."

"No." The jet ran his long talons lightly over Barricade's upper arm. "You fought. For me."

"Y-yeah?" Barricade felt nervous. He couldn't read the jet's expression. Starscream scooped him up against him, pulling him into a gentle, yet needy kiss. His sensornet fired signals at him—confusion, desire, a lingering awareness of Onslaught watching him. What was he thinking? Probably what a fool Barricade was.

But Starscream's mouth was insistent, and his hands stroked expertly along Barricade's back and shoulders. Barricade squirmed to free his arms, grazing over the familiar contours of the jet's chest armor. So much like Skywarp, he thought. And then, rejected that thought. No. If he thought of Starscream as Skywarp or as a stand in for him…he'd be doing just what Onslaught had said. This was either about Starscream, or he ended it right here.

Starscream broke the kiss, gently, his optics warm and close to Barricade's. He tipped his chin in and nipped Barricade's mouth. "Thank you, Barricade," he murmured. "No one has ever…." He shook his head, as if unable to find the words. His long fingers teased their way down Barricade's back, sending glittering sensations through Barricade's dermal sensors, through his secondary systems. He shuddered, a soft moan of desire bubbling in his throat.

Well, Barricade, he asked himself, what do you do now? His sensornet was not feeding him unbiased information. It knew what it wanted. But…. Skywarp, he thought.

"I shall open a link to Skywarp," Starscream offered. "I want to please you." Barricade shuddered at the words, partially revulsed—he had no right to claim this sort of submission from the jet—and more than a little aroused. All of Starscream—his body, his emotions, his desires—laid out before him. It was…dizzying.

"No," he heard himself say. "No link. Want you."

The bronze jet pulled away for a moment, looking down, curious. "Yes," he said, simply. He pulled Barricade on top of him, rolling onto his back, his entire body moving, twisting and arching and shifting under Barricade. Barricade's small talons curved themselves around and along edges of the bronze jet's armor, his mouth placing hot kisses down the chassis as he squirmed his way down, feeling Starscream's thighs parting for him.

What are you doing?! Part of his processor screamed at him. Have you forgotten about Skywarp? This is betrayal. Still, he kept thinking to the needy, desperate look in the jet's optics, the strange, dark arousal it stirred in him. He unsheathed his spike and slid it into the jet's valve, moaning as the Starscream writhed around it, his vents already ragged. The valve was slick from Onslaught's lubricant, and that thought, which should have disturbed him, somehow only excited him more. He leaned forward to plant a kiss on the jet's cockpit and found himself biting at the intersection of glass and metal.

Starscream hissed, his hands clutching at Barricade's shoulders. He writhed as Barricade began working his spike in the valve, propping up on one elbow, his other hand squeezing at the arm tire, down Barricade's side, his optics hot on Barricade's straining body. Barricade felt lubricant, heated by friction, slick his pelvic frame, metal sliding over metal.

Barricade heard a feral growl from some place, but only when he saw his talons sink between the joins in the armor into the cables below did he realize the growling was his own. Above him, Starscream's breath was uneven, panting, his chassis rising and falling, quivering with pent up energy begging for release.

The overload hit Barricade like a physical blow, arching his spinal line, throwing his head back, his claws grabbing into metal hard enough to scratch. Starscream made a strangled sound as his valve clutched at Barricade's spike, his hand frozen in the air for a long moment. He fell back, panting, Barricade collapsing on top of him. Barricade slowly released his grip on the jet's body, his talons almost stiff from the built up pressure. "Sorry," he mumbled into the jet's cockpit.

"Would you please," Starscream said, lazily, one hand coming to stroke Barricade's face, "stop apologizing?"

"Sorry," Barricade said, reflexively. He caught himself, looked abashed. Starscream laughed, throwing his head back. Barricade wriggled his hips back, easing his spike from the jet's valve. He found his movement arrested by a hand grabbing the mounts of his wing fairings.

"You," Onslaught said, his voice husky, "almost have potential." Barricade's head was jerked back, Onslaught's mouth, battlemask retracted, hard on his throat. He whimpered. Onslaught pulled him further off –balance, shifting around, sliding one thigh between Barricade's, rubbing against the valve cover. The cover released.

"Cute little game, isn't it?" Onslaught murmured, "Playing at control. Easy with him because he wants it. Not so easy with me." His hand squeezed hard at Barricade's still pressurized spike, causing him to yelp. "Fight me.'

"No,"Barricade said, helplessly. He'd been here before, a mech forcing himself on him violently. Rule one: never give them what they want. He tried to squirm out of Onslaught's grip. The Combaticon twisted the mount of one door wing, sending signals too intense to be properly sorted into pleasure or pain.

Barricade's fist lashed out, striking Onslaught's face, weakened by the gravity he was working against. Onslaught grabbed his wrist with his free hand, squeezing the tire until Barricade winced. "You can do better than that," he said mildly. "Heard you can put up a hell of a fight. I have to threaten that to get any fight out of you?"

Barricade struggled, pushing all of his limbs against Onslaught, trying to buck the large mech off his hips. He felt panic mixed with arousal, boiling together into confusion. Onslaught laughed, shoving his legs apart and sinking his spike into Barricade's valve, a cool intruding presence.

Barricade screamed, his frame arching up, rigid, a thousand bad memories flooding over him. "Stop!" he begged. Onslaught froze. Barricade lay trembling for a long moment. Onslaught didn't move. Starscream moved behind him, bending over to plant a gentle kiss on Barricade's mouth, his hand catching at Barricade's free one, interlacing their talons. "It is all right, Barricade. He will discontinue if you wish."

"But…."

"He is unsure of your intent—do you simply need more time to adjust or is this disturbing to you?" Starscream rubbed his cheekplates against Barricade's. "I will not let him harm you."

Barricade's chassis trembled. What would Onslaught think of him? Playing with power again. No. He could handle it. He wasn't afraid. He had been through the worst of this and survived. He was not afraid, even of this. Of himself, though…."Yeah," he said, unsteadily. "He can continue."

Starscream pulled back out of the way, but kept his hand interlaced with Barricade's.

"Talk or not?" Onslaught asked, calmly. As if he hadn't been hanging over Barricade, spike in valve, for a handful of kliks.

"No." Too much like the other times. The taunting humiliation. Too many memories clawing their way out of the shadows: as though words gave them footholds in the real world.

Onslaught nodded, gruffly, and propping himself up on his arms, began thrusting into Barricade's valve. Barricade felt his valve respond, eagerly, the charge beginning to prickle up against the nodes. Onslaught's face was impassive, blank, hovering over his. Starscream squeezed his hand for a klik, as if to remind him this was not real. This was not against his will. This would not go too far. Barricade squeezed back. Desire and fear and trust and doubt swirled together in his processor, a complex and dizzying cocktail of sensation. And at the bottom of it all, like a foundation, was Skywarp. His ex-lover. His Trine mate. The fact that Skywarp would find this hot. And that he wouldn't let anything happen, bad. He had stopped Onslaught before from going too far. But Skywarp isn't here, he thought.

Onslaught held one of his wrists, the jet the other: between the two of them he was pinned, helpless. He shuttered his optics, feeling the pressure on one wrist tire, long, almost-familiar talons in the other hand, the spike pushing into his valve insistently, forcefully. He surrendered. Not just to what Onslaught was doing but to himself. That there was something about this he enjoyed. Something about the powerlessness, the helplessness, that he had always enjoyed with Skywarp.

Onslaught grunted in time to his thrusts, his hand closing on the tire, his other hand resting across Barricade's throat, applying pressure to the exposed energon line. Barricade's optics flashed wide open, his vents coming in panicked heaves as the pressure on the line blurred his vision.

Onslaught snarled, his hand tightening over Barricade's throat, his entire body bucking upward to drive his spike hard and with finality against the upper wall of Barricade's valve, his overload bursting hot and wet into the valve, which sent Barricade into a helpless, spinning overload of his own, almost like a release, a burst of freedom. "Hot when you overload," Onslaught commented in his audio. "Know that, right?" Barricade quivered, both from his words and the sensation of his valve still spasming around the spike. "Starscream wants you again, by the way."

Barricade tilted his head back. Starscream's optics were hot on him. Starscream read something like assent in his face and hauled him back using the hand he held, dragging his valve off of Onslaught's spike. Barricade whined with regret at the missing spike.

"May I?" Starscream murmured in his audio, wrapping his arms around Barricade's body. Barricade nodded. Starscream shifted his hips, and pushed his own spike slowly into Barricade's valve. Barricade shivered, wrapping his arms over Starscream's, almost as if hugging the massive forearms to his chest. Starscream rocked his hips, slowly, agonizingly slowly. Barricade found shudders rippling through his frame, his vents uneven. His throat still ached from where Onslaught had pressed his hand. The gentle motion was maddeningly erotic, and Onslaught's steady gaze on him made him tingle with something like shame, even as he heard Onslaught's last words re-echo in his processor. He heard himself moaning, his head dropping back against the jet's chassis.

"I," Starscream said quietly, "disobeyed you, Barricade."

Barricade stiffened. "H-how?"

"I opened a link to Skywarp."

Barricade's breath caught. Then he…knows. Barricade writhed, the rising charge in his valve distracting him, feeling somehow wrong. Undeniable, marching inexorably toward overload, but…wrong. Desire betrayal. "I'm sorry!" he blurted. He should have seen this coming—and he'd cheated on Skywarp. Yes, Skywarp had told him he could any time, but…. He felt his optics prick with loss. He'd fucked up. Again. Trying to do something nice for Starscream. No, he told himself. You wanted to. It felt good. Powerful. You liked it. Doing it, and having it done to you.

"There is nothing for which to apologize, Barricade," Starscream murmured. "Skywarp wants you to know that."

"But he…." He's not talking to me. He's avoiding me.

Starscream ran one hand down Barricade's ventral line, the back of his wrist deliberately grazing Barricade's lubricant-wet spike. "He didn't want to intrude." The jet's spike kept its even tempo in his valve, building up a charge that sent iridescent tremors through his sensornet that did not at all agree with the sudden confusion and worry in his processor.

"He's not…." Even Barricade didn't know how to finish that sentence: Mad? Jealous? Hurt? Betrayed?

"No," Starscream said, softly. Barricade flinched as Onslaught loomed over him suddenly.

"He's not," Onslaught said, flatly. "And this is what he wants right now." Onslaught wrapped his hand around Barricade's spike.

Barricade moaned, involuntarily, his hips rising off the jet's pelvic frame, causing Starscream's spike to stir in his valve. His entire frame convulsed. Onslaught's hand pulled at the spike, squeezing harder at the spike's end nodes, letting Starscream's thrusts into Barricade's valve set his pace.

"He wants this," Starscream echoed, his hands releasing their fierce grip on Barricade, talons dancing lightly over his body. The idea that Skywarp was watching, feeling along set his processor and sensor net ablaze. He heard Onslaught's breath coming in deep, rough pants, though his hand was gentle on Barricade's spike. Beneath him, Barricade felt Starscream's body quiver with desire. Onslaught moved down by Barricade's feet: Starscream gasped, his hips twitching up suddenly, and then began moaning, a low soft sound. The jet locked one arm around his midsection, abruptly, and his tempo picked up, driving fiercely into Barricade. Onslaught braced one beside Barricade's head, gripping the bronze jet's shoulders, while his other still worked along Barricade's spike. His visor switched from Starscream's face to Barricade's, with something almost like eagerness.

Starscream howled, his arms crushing Barricade against him, as his overload seized him. Barricade had only one thought—that through the Trine link, Skywarp was overloading. His head dropped back, his hands clutching into Starscream's arms as both of his systems tripped into overload together, his spike spurting its silver fluid onto Onslaught's chassis and his own. Onslaught growled, and gave on final shove with his pelvic plating that Barricade remembered from before, his hand tight enough to be painful against Barricade's spike.

Onslaught dropped his chassis on Barricade, pulling his sticky, fluid coated hand out from between them. Starscream reached up to stroke along Onslaught's shoulders. Barricade felt…comfortably confined, the last ripples of the overload shimmering through his net.

Onslaught groaned, pushing himself off the jet, almost as if to avoid Starscream's light caresses. "Some of us around here have Ops training early in dutycycle." He twisted out of Starscream's reaching arms, carefully stowing his equipment as he climbed off the berth. Barricade winced as he saw the silvery trail of his own transfluid on Onslaught's winch and upper chassis.

"There are cleansing cloths in the maintenance facility," Starscream said, transferring his stroking hands to Barricade, who found himself melting under the gentle touches.

Onslaught snorted. "Nah. More fun to freak Blast Off out this way." He gave a vague dismissing nod, and headed out the door.

"Ah, that sense of humor Skywarp loves so much…that somewhat eludes me." Starscream smiled.

Barricade shifted, uncomfortable. Skywarp didn't love his sense of humor. Barricade honestly wasn't even all that sure he had one. And—and why hadn't Skywarp commed him? Was he still talking to Starscream? What were they saying about him?

He sat up, wriggling his way off Starscream's spike. Starscream's hands transferred their attention to his back kibble. "And you, Barricade? You are welcome to recharge here."

Barricade ducked his head. Were they still talking? How much of that invitation was Starscream and how much was Skywarp? Was this a test? Was there a right answer? "No," he mumbled, rolling off the jet, wincing in embarrassment as fluid dripped from his valve—Onslaught's and Starscream's. What had it mattered that he'd wanted it? He was filthy. Disgusting. No wonder Skywarp didn't want to talk to him. "Bothered you enough."

Starscream's optics narrowed, gauging something in Barricade's expression. "You do not—Skywarp," he said, restarting. "Will comm you later."

Barricade hated how his spark leapt at the thought, even as his processor asked, querulously, why not now?


	22. Floating Numb

A/N Frag. I need to update the profile page--someone did some amazingly cute art for Black Friday for me and I need to share the pure AWWW

Anyway, sticky, angst, and dubcon bordering on noncon. This is a pretty dark chapter. Please use your personal discretion if this might trigger you.

Skywarp settled himself gingerly in the tank of exterior joint lubricant. It had taken him…conspicuously long in the washrack, scrubbing fiercely, almost hatefully at his own limbs. Ostensibly trying to scrub away the last of the flight-sealant, but he knew what he was really trying to do: abrade himself, take pain as a distraction from himself: from what he had done, from what he was capable of doing. Distract him from…thinking about what Barricade would think.

And then Starscream had linked with him and he had felt…something he had never felt before. It burned in a hollow little space under his spark chamber, like some sort of dark, crystalline fire. He felt, heard, saw Barricade with Starscream and Onslaught. And…as impossibly arousing as it was, even as he felt his own systems respond along with his Trine mate, the burning had flared higher.

Jealousy. He was jealous. That they were with him and he was not. That Barricade was enjoying them, and he was not there to share it. Not really, even as his sensor net rippled, synchronized with Starscream's.

But he had told Barricade he could—even he couldn't hold it against the smaller mech. And if Barricade had to interface, there was some comfort that he'd chosen Starscream and Onslaught—the two mechs Skywarp knew would take care of him. Who wouldn't overstep his boundaries.

Even as he watched Onslaught force Barricade to fight him, he knew Onslaught would stop before…. Though that had caused another strange pain, watching Barricade respond to Onslaught's roughness. Watching Barricade writhe, unable to tell if it was from pain or arousal. Knowing he didn't trust himself to hold back, as Onslaught could; seeing a need in Barricade he dare not fill.

Starscream's overload had ripped through the Trine link, staggering him under the fall of cleanser from the ceiling taps, the clear liquid washing away the spill of transfluid along with his tears.

//Are you all right?// his Trine mate had asked, his voice even over comm, concerned. //Your systems are…unstable.//

Skywarp had muttered some random rationale that he knew Starscream didn't believe either, and clicked off, his talons scratching into the wall of the maintenance facility, as if trying to push his pain through his talon tips and out, into the blank, dumb surface.

Jealousy and…the growing feeling that he had made a huge mistake. What had he done? He couldn't unsay the words to Barricade, even if it was as easy as unsaying them. Something had grown between them, larger but even more intangible than their combined EM field, that wouldn't go away. Something large yet fragile and so-very-vulnerable. And after what he had done with—done to—Thundercracker, he didn't trust himself not to break it.

He had to contact Barricade. He wanted to, right now, so desperately it felt his fuel lines were overoxygenated. But…he had no idea what to say. More than that, he wanted to hear—he wanted to hear Barricade console him, tell him he was special. That it was different with him, even without the pain, the dominance game. That Barricade didn't need that…not with him. But he couldn't ask that, be that pathetic. Not with…not with Thundercracker still in his EM, a discordant harmonic in his vibration.

So instead, he sank into the hot tub of lubricating oil, hoping its soothing warmth would calm his racing processor, take him out of his cortex and into his body and give him time. Give him time to figure things out. Find a way to talk to Barricade without blurting out…more things he couldn't unsay, make the thing between them larger, stronger. Which would make it all the harder when, inevitably, he would end up having to smash it to pieces. Because of Thundercracker.

No. Because of himself. Because of what he knew he could do. Because of what he knew he was, what he had become. It was wrong to blame Thundercracker—it was just that Thundercracker seemed bent on reminding him of it.

He lay back, submerging himself under the surface entirely, feeling the oil ooze between all of his servos, cables, under his heavy armor. He forced himself to relax. And think. The oil stripped out his EM field of any vibration but his own, and he tried to open into that feeling of being just himself, even while he felt the final loss of Barricade's fuzzy pulse as a bad omen.

Oh, little spike, he thought, achingly. Maybe…maybe this is for the best. Maybe during the combat mission I'll die and you can go on with the memory of me as you think I am. Before I can ruin it. But…I want to be able to say goodbye first. I want to play, just one more time, that mech you think I am. Before we both lose sight of him forever.

He disliked the buoyancy of the oil, holding him, weightless, suspended. He wanted to feel Barricade, even feel the smaller mech under him, the way Barricade liked to recharge—Skywarp pulled over him like a heavy living blanket. Ridiculous, really, that such a little thing, a little quirk or habit, could cause such a flood of response: Right now, Skywarp would give anything to drape himself on top of Barricade, the rising bulge of his cockpit snugged under Barricade's grille. But the oil held him up, floating, just as he was trying to float—indecisive, refusing to move in one direction or another, trying to hold onto a hover. Unlike flying, where he fought against gravity, here his opposing force was time, which would tear him down despite his best skill and effort.

He had to surface. He had to do something—he couldn't stay in the tank, or in indecision, forever. He pushed himself to the surface, then to his feet, careful of his footing, oil sheeting off him, spilling in amber beads back into the tank. His energy systems hovered close to red. The small ration of energon hadn't been enough, and he needed to recharge his systems desperately. And maybe a reboot of his secondaries would clear his cache and he could think properly about what to do. He watched his hands shake from the lack of energon.

"Good look for you." Skywarp stiffened at Thundercracker's voice. He turned—his Trine mate stood in the doorway, leaning one elbow against the frame. "You should go high gloss." Skywarp grabbed for a cleansing cloth, bluntly swabbing the oil off his armor.

"Better matte," he said.

"Ah yes," Thundercracker murmured, coming closer, swooping down to pick up a cloth to help, "the stealth thing." He started swabbing at Skywarp's chest. "I don't know why you want to make yourself look ugly."

Skywarp stiffened. Barricade certainly didn't think he was ugly. Thundercracker noticed the change.

"I didn't mean ugly. I'm sorry, Skywarp." The cleansing cloth moved up closer to Skywarp's throat, Thundercracker's face close to Skywarp's. "It's just that…it looks like you're hiding what you could truly be."

I want to hide it, Skywarp thought, even as he felt a dull rage and violation at Thundercracker's too familiar touch. He swiped more roughly over his own armor, using it as an excuse to bend away from Thundercracker's reach.

Thundercracker slicked a hand over his lower back. "Could take you like this," he said, teasing.

"I just got clean," Skywarp said. "And you came to get me, I presume, because I'm late for something."

"No. I just missed you."

Skywarp frowned, at himself. At Thundercracker's words, because they were sincere. In his way.

"And what's the fun of being clean except to get dirty again?" Thundercracker said, coyly, one hand trailing up Skywarp's thigh.

Skywarp couldn't disguise the pain in his expression. "Sorry," he mumbled, watching Thundercracker's expression turn to hurt. "Just…tired. Really need to recharge." He thought longingly of Barricade's cramped berth, the familiar smell of Barricade's groundframe joint oil. It seemed to recede out of his reach.

"Yes," Thundercracker assented. "It was a long flight. And I took a lot out of you, didn't I?" He winked, cheekily. "Let's finish this quickly and get you to berth." He slicked his rag down Skywarp's right leg, the picture of businesslike haste.

"Where are my quarters?" Skywarp had a sinking feeling he knew the answer.

"Quarters? With me, of course. You don't mind, do you?" Thundercracker had dropped to his knee joint, looking up, importuningly, at Skywarp. "I promise I'll behave," he added.

"Yes, fine," Skywarp said, numbly. He slicked the oily rag over his head, closing his eyes as the cloth covered his face. He knew that for the lie it was. But even so, he recognized that Thundercracker didn't.

The blue jet stood up. "Close enough, right? We'll let the rest of it soak in while you recharge." He tossed his rag into a bin for autoclaving, swiping the one from Skywarp's fingers as well. He gestured Skywarp to go in front of him. Skywarp stepped past him, his sensor net firing strange alarm signals at him. No, he told himself. Overtired. Undercharged. Overwrought. It's nothing. He missed you. He wants to be with you and all the worry you feel is just your own drama you are projecting onto him.

He said that even as he knew it was a lie. He hated how easily he grasped for lies.

When the truth was this:

Thundercracker seized his elbow as he passed, swinging him face first into the plassteel wall. He grunted, pain shooting across his sensornet. He felt Thundercracker's hands move from his wrist and elbow to his shoulders, a hot mouth against the back of his neck.

"You are so beautiful," Thundercracker breathed down his neck. "I wish you could see that. It hurts me that you can't."

"I-you're hurting me." Skywarp winced as Thundercracker's talons dug under his shoulder armor. His voice was muffled—his vocalizer pressed against the wall.

"You hurt yourself," Thundercracker said, softly. He rubbed himself against Skywarp's engines. "I can't tell you how much you arouse me, Skywarp. You always have." His legs slid against Skywarp's from behind.

"Starscream," Skywarp muttered, twisting himself away, trying to dislodge Thundercracker's talons. Even as he spoke he felt awful; as if he were throwing Starscream like a sacrifice between them.

"Yes," Thundercracker said. "I miss him, too. When I come back with you…oh." Skywarp's systems tweaked an alarm: Thundercracker was coming back with him? This was the first he'd heard of it. And… he hated playing out that future. Right now, he couldn't make anything of that future but a hard knot of icy dread.

The exhaustion was getting to him. An insistent yellow light began blinking in his HUD, as if he needed reminding of his nearness to recharge-shutdown. Thundercracker's hands moved, reaching under Skywarp's arms, pulling Skywarp back against him, one hand stretching for Skywarp's interface equipment. "I want you."

"Recharge," Skywarp said, blearily. He was exhausted. Drained, physically and emotionally. The icy dread was sucking the heat from his emotions, turning him numb. He still had to—he was agonizingly aware—contact Barricade. His one gratitude was that Barricade hadn't commed him. But that gratitude fed his jealousy—Barricade, right now, was probably with Starscream, snuggled against his bronzy gold frame. He could picture it—Barricde's silver talons on Starscream's rib struts. The jealous burn blended with an ache of longing. "Really. Too tired for this." He squirmed again, twisting his hips away from Thundercracker's hand. He pushed away.

"No." Thundercracker's voice was hard. "You do not reject me, Skywarp. We are a Trine."

Skywarp half-turned. His knee stabilizers quivered. "Not rejecting you. Honestly, I'm just too tired right now. I can barely see straight. I'm on the verge of secondary-systems shutdown." Not a lie, but not the whole truth either.

"You," Thundercracker repeated, as if Skywarp was stupid, "do not reject me." His optics suddenly looked malevolent against their blue plating.

"I told you, I wasn—" The blow caught him on the side of the head, staggering him to the opposite bulkhead, his hands flailing out to catch his balance. His sensor net flared with pain, alarms flickering. His self-repair frantically rerouted his remaining energy into his damaged audio and the gyroscopic sensors in his head, sending him tumbling to the floor as, in consequence, they cut fine control leg servos. The extra burden of processing the alarms spiked his core temp. More power was cut to his actuators to kick on his heat sinks. He tried to push himself up.

Thundercracker's weight crashed on top of him, his hands skilled, hot, furious, snatching at Skywarp's interface panel, talons digging into the enamel. "We are a Trine," he hissed. Skywarp dug his hand under Thundercracker's shoulder, trying to divert as much remaining power as he could to push Thundercracker away. His servos whined.

"You do not fight me," Thundercracker said, grimly. He swung down with one long arm, slashing at Skywarp's face. Metal squealed against metal. These were, Skywarp knew, the rules. Sometimes Thundercracker 'wanted' you to fight. Sometimes not. It depended on which would allow him to exert more control.

It bothered him that even knowing the system, he couldn't work around them. Some tactician you are.

Skywarp cried out, not caring that it was a public hallway, as Thundercracker's spike jammed in his valve. Thundercracker's one hand raked down Skywarp's side, reaching for his wrist that he bent back far enough to cause the black jet to gasp.

Give in. Don't fight. It will only make him worse.

"A Trine," Thundercracker repeated. "We are always there for each other." He began driving his spike hard into Skywarp's valve, lifting the black jet's leg out of the way, crooking it over one elbow. "Do I have to teach you that again?" His other hand scratched down the heavy mounting braces of Skywarp's engines. Skywarp mewed in pain, kicking feebly against his shutting-down servos, fighting shutdown as much as Thundercracker.

"No!" Skywarp gasped, not in answer to his question, though he took it that way. Skywarp was refusing this, trying to make it not happen, make it stop. Deny reality. As if, again, a word could change anything.

"You have no idea," Thundercracker murmured, "how beautiful you are like this. So open to me." He bent lower, digging his talons for leverage through Skywarp's rib struts. "So open."

Skywarp twisted, trying to roll over.

"You are open to me, aren't you?" Thundercracker's voice was unctuous, seductive.

"Yes," Skywarp said. Get it over with. Then, he felt a wash of guilt: he is your Trine mate. You must be there for his needs. We must work harder than the other Trines to bond, try harder, open more, to get over the loss than almost broke us. We must accommodate, (his cortex dredged back up from memory), a Seeker trainer's voice he could no longer place, we must accommodate for the grieving process. The overload failed to build in Skywarp's valve, the charge buildup hampered by the joint lubricant Skywarp had soaked in. Thundercracker thrust into him, his actions vicious, but his voice was soft and gentle.

"You are so open for me, yes. You'd spark link with me if I asked, wouldn't you?" His hands stroked coaxingly over Skywarp's body. Skywarp shuddered, hoping Thundercracker would take it as a sign of arousal. If he spark linked with Thundercracker…he'd know everything. On one hand, a clean solution, lancing the boil of mistrust and fear growing between them. No, growing one-sidedly. That was all Skywarp.

But Thundercracker would know, at least skipping over the agonizing scene of Thundercracker finding out the hard way—the blame, the recrimination, the condescending doubt that it was true, that it could be true. That Skywarp could have 'fallen' so far from his ideals.

On the other hand, Thundercracker would know. With all that would entail. And Skywarp had barely been able to say the words, and had cut the line before he'd had to deal with the aftermath—leaving Starscream, once again, to clean up a mess he had created—he was not ready for Thundercracker to know. He was barely ready for himself to know.

And…oh Primus. Barricade's spark cover. He could feel it throb, suddenly, against his—so light, yet so heavy with meaning. And so…dangerous. If Thundercracker saw it….

He felt ashamed. Ashamed he wasn't strong enough to stand in front of his Trine mate and claim it. Claim Barricade. And with that shame, he felt a tide of unworthiness, that he could simply no longer fight.

"Yes," he heard himself say, hating himself as he said it, a risk, a bet, a giving-in to his own cowardliness. What Thundercracker wanted was the submission more than the intimacy. That had always been Thundecracker's way; the way Starscream had always wanted the intimacy—enduring cycles of abuse for one tender word or gesture. Skywarp had no idea where he fell on that spectrum. He was too tired to think, too tired to pretend he was anything more than a coward. The yellow light blinked faster, more urgently, almost in tempo—sick coincidence—with Thundercracker's spike in his valve. His valve nodes refused to hold a charge. What should have been a rising charge to overload was simply an irritating prickle.

"Good," Thundercracker said. "I love you so much," he purred. His pace picked up, pounding into Skywarp's valve, the lubricant tumbling down onto Skywarp's other thigh, slicked with the joint fluid. "I love when you don't fight me, Skywarp." His talons dug deeper, one into Skywarp's engine mount, the other into his inner thigh. Skywarp moaned in pain, struggling to at least turn his engine away from the cruel fingers. "Love it as much as when you do fight me, Skywarp," Thundercracker whispered, bending over Skywarp's limp body.

"I don't want to fight you," Skywarp said, deeply, honestly. He wanted his Trine to get along. He would do what it took. Open. Accommodate. As if that could somehow make up for Skyfire's death. They had lost a piece, and needed to recreate it with pieces of themselves.

And he wanted—needed—recharge right now. Talking to Barricade, even worrying about what he would say—he couldn't even think about that now. Just…getting through to recharge. Getting through this. He'd have to sort through the emotions later. Too much. Right now, just…too much. Some warrior, he thought, dully. Some fearsome warrior you are. Can't even fight for yourself. Can't even, more importantly, fight for Barricade. He moaned in thin despair.

"I know," Thundercracker said, softly, moving one hand to dig the talon points under Skywarp's collar armor. 'You don't want to fight. We belong together. You have no idea how good it will be for us to be together again." He stopped speaking, vents hissing in time to his thrusts. The yellow light blinked faster in Skywarp's HUD. Systems shutdown imminent, a ping read.

"Please," Skywarp gasped. "Shutdown." He reached one hand out to Thundercracker, trying to take his hand in a pitiful gesture. Please. Pity. Stop. He'd even take pity now, as much as that scraped like gravel over his pride. Thundercracker took his hand, squeezing it fiercely in his own, Skywarp's barbs in the gaps between his own fingers.

"I'll take care of you, Skywarp," he said. He paused, a shudder running through his body, rattling him against Skywarp's lower frame, as he overloaded. He began cycling large vents of air to cool his heated systems. He looked down at Skywarp, whose visuals were beginning to fuzz out. "I always have and I always will."


	23. Distance

A/N What's all this PLOT doing in here? Little sappy, sorry. :C

Barricade would not let himself fall into recharge. Starscream had said Skywarp would comm him. Skywarp wouldn't go back on a promise like that—even if Barricade hadn't heard the promise from Skywarp himself. And Barricade felt he'd die of disappointment if Skywarp commed him only to get a 'recharge callback' zip. He sat on his recharge berth, joints locked down, feeling his systems periodically trying to drift to shutdown. Eventually he gave in, letting his non-essential systems—voluntary physical control, optics, audio—fade offline until he became merely a cooled core, a waiting presence…and a silent comm line.

His emotions rocketed from worry to anger to despair, all embracing the same thought, why hasn't he called?

Barricade's chrono clicked to seventeen kliks before his online alarm when he finally gave up. Skywarp wasn't going to comm. It was pointless by then, he told himself, to recharge. Seventeen kliks of charge was not much more than none. He could manage to make it to his work cube and his online recharge. Still, he couldn't stir himself to move. Why? To get to his work cube early? His mood filled him with a leaden lethargy. I love you, he thought, hopelessly, helplessly. A plea. An assertion.

Sixteen kliks.

The soft chime of an incoming freq. His capacitor dropped current for a few breathless instants. "On?"

Skywarp turned his head to one side, as if turning his visual field away from Thundercracker would somehow erase him. He felt a pang of guilt at the thought—his own Trine mate. Still….

Thundercracker had collapsed on top of Skywarp, one arm and leg thrown over him, possessively. He felt Thundercracker's cooling fans' exhaust as gentle breaths against his side, Thundercracker's face nuzzled against his neck. His valve ached, but not as much as his spark.

He had to comm Barricade. Or else he WAS nothing but worthless dross. He had to…and he wanted to, but for different reasons. Better to end it now—even like a coward, even from a distance—than drag it any longer , hurt the little grounder even more. He wished…oh he wished it wasn't so. He felt the need to hear the smaller mech's voice like a physical pain.

And the only time—he tasted this irony bitterly—he could comm him was with Thundercracker sprawled over him like this, a blanket of betrayal.

He activated his comm, feeling miserable. For himself. For what he had to do.

"Barricade?" he said, softly, even though he knew the comm line was secure, as though afraid of being overheard. Or…waking him. Either of them. He hadn't run the time conversion calculations. Lazy, selfish, Skywarp. "Are you there?"

"Yes." The desperate longing all somehow packed into that one syllable crushed Skywarp's resolve.

"I miss you so much, little spike," he blurted, his entire intention gone. Evaporated. Let him go? He couldn't. His greedy spark wouldn't let him. Even knowing how he would only end up hurting him more…he couldn't. His sense of unworthiness redoubled. How could he do this to Barricade? How could he give in to his desires, knowing that it would only hurt Barricade in the future?

"You do?" Almost frantic disbelief. Anyone else, it would sound like an accusation.

If only you knew, Skywarp thought. If only I could show you…. His spark chamber seemed to give an upward pulse. He shifted, apprehensive, as if Thundercracker could feel it. Thundercracker recharged on, his expression blissful. In recharge, Thundercracker had the face of an angel—peaceful, serene. Skywarp had always convinced himself—another lie he grabbed for—that this was Thundercracker's real character, his true self, safe to come out only in recharge. "Yes," he said, "I'm sorry about the time."

"You're busy." Barricade said, quickly. Handing him an excuse.

Not too busy for you, Skywarp thought. Unworthy. Instead, he heard himself agree, clutching at the excuse, another layer padding him—and Barricade—from reality. "I…uhh…was there with you and Onslaught and Starscream."

"Starscream told me," Barricade's voice was tremulous and thin. Skywarp could almost picture Barricade just from the tone: optics downcast, talons tangling together in his lap. He knew Barricade would be sitting up, with a certainty he couldn't analyze. "'M sorry."

"Ohhhh. Please don't apologize, little sp—Barricade," he corrected. "I want you to be happy." Truth so large and honest it hurt his throat. "Did they make you happy?" he added, meekly, half-afraid of the answer.

"Not like you," Barricade said, hastily.

Skywarp felt his spark swell at the words. If only there wasn't so much standing between them: distance and…history….

"Don't feel guilty," he said. Enough guilt already. Enough blame. Don't need anymore. Especially not with what…I have done. And this jealousy? Skywarp deserved it: deserved the pain. Needed the stinging reminder that Barricade could be happy without him. Be just fine without him. Didn't need him.

It was the only time, Skywarp thought, he had ever been trusted. Always, he'd been written off before simply as his exterior: teasing, joking. Not like he wasn't that. In fact, often he wished he could become that—all surface, all glitter and shine. But it didn't change the fact that Barricade had seen him as he really was: broken, vulnerable, afraid, and had not turned away.

Barricade had not seen, however, his other side.

"I'm glad you chose them, actually."

"Wasn't intentional." Still trying to apologize.

"Best kind, little spike," he forced himself to tease. "You were so hot." He could feel Barricade's happy discomfort at the compliment.

"You…you…doing okay?" The end rushed out too hastily. Skywarp could hear what he really wanted to ask: had Skywarp, too, interfaced?

"I'm with Thundercracker," he said. He couldn't lie and maybe Barricade would feel less guilty if he knew Skywarp had also not been celibate. Still, it hurt to admit it somehow. Why?

"And…he…?"

"Not like you." Skywarp repeated Barricade's hasty claim with a wry smile. He heard Barricade get the response, and then begin to doubt it. Poor little spike. He saw the shadows in everything. Even Skywarp. "I miss you so much," he repeated.

A long silence. "You…sure you're not mad?"

Despite himself, Skywarp grinned. "You worry too much, Barricade."

"Just…," a long gust of air. "Don't want to lose you?"

Skywarp's spark chamber gave another unfamiliar throb. Is this what it felt like, he thought, suddenly, to want to spark link? "You won't lose me." Not over that. He tried to turn it into a joke, afterward, ashamed of the naked emotion in his voice, but he couldn't. Instead he blurted, "How are you doing?" The instant he spoke, he wished he could pull the words out of the freq. What if Barricade asked the same of him—what would he respond?

"Doing all right. Missing you." As if that itself were an all-consuming activity. Skywarp knew how that felt. He'd felt Barricade like an absent presence, a ghost, with him every klik since his departure. But never more than now. Despite the distance, he felt…a comforting nearness.

Skywarp wasn't sure he could take any more. "Please," he said, softly. Not even knowing what he was asking for.

"I love you," Barricade mumbled, and then added, clumsily, "Sorry. 'M sorry. Don't have to say it back or anything and not trying to make you feel uncomfortable or pressured and don't even know why I said it in the first place and—"

"Stop," Skywarp said, softly. Barricade cut off, abruptly. "Say it again."

"M sorry."

"Not that?" He felt the smile spread over his face again. He cast a quick apprehensive glance at Thundercracker.

"I…love you?"

Skywarp purred. He couldn't help it: Barricade's words, so haltingly tripping out of his vocalizer, caused his whole interior systems feel electrified. He wanted to hear it again and again, as if the thing it was building between them—the thing he knew he'd eventually have to destroy—was a lifeline feeding him a source more vital than energon. But he couldn't bring himself to ask yet again, be that greedy.

"Thank you," he breathed, gently, barely audibly, over the line.

"Are—are you coming back?"Again, a world of longing crammed into the syllables: are you coming back to me, please don't abandon me.

"Yes." No matter what, yes. "We…have to talk about some things, though."

"Okay," Barricade said, with an obedience so quick it almost hurt. The moment stretched, Barricade waiting, expectantly, bracing himself—Skywarp could feel that, across the line. Skywarp swore inwardly. How could he possibly…?

Skywarp's courage failed again. Slag. In combat he could handle himself. Shoot at him, he was fine. But…talk about his past? He was a coward. The whole story—Skyfire's death, Starscream's near suicide, Thundercracker—it was opening a floodgate he wasn't sure he could close. And so he took the coward's way out, hating himself while he did. "I won't do it this way. Face to face, all right? When I come back." He couldn't stop himself from adding, "to you." Just to reassure the mech. Reassure himself.

"Okay," Barricade repeated. Accepting. Unhappy, but accepting the crumbs he'd been given. Skywarp writhed inwardly.

"Barricade?" he hated himself even more for this. "Ask Starscream. Ask him about Thundercracker."

A sudden tension. "Are you okay?"

Oh Primus, he sensed it. The little mech could read into it already. Skywarp felt a burn of humiliation, along with a flutter of fear—all his life, he'd been able to mask this to everyone. Why not Barricade? How long had the grounder seen through him? "Yeah," he said. "I'm fine, little spike." Fine enough. Barricade didn't need to trouble himself. Skywarp would, after all, survive.

He heard a chime. And Barricade curse roundly.

"Online chime?"

Another curse. "Gotta go. Don't want to."

"Do your job, little spike." Next to him, Thundercracker stirred in his sleep, idly stroking one hand down Skywarp's side. "And…if it helps at all, I love you." He cut the comm line, still cursing his cowardice. Twice, and he hadn't the courage to hear Barricade's reaction out.

Coward. You do not deserve……….


	24. Ancient History

A/N: No smut, but... a hell of a lot of exposition. And a very, very drunk jet.

Barricade commed Starscream during his shiftbreak and left a message. He didn't want to bother the jet, but Skywarp's request, and the strange urgency in his voice, had eaten at Barricade the entire first half of shiftcycle. "Ask Starscream. Ask him about Thundercracker." He had tried to ignore the gnawing worry in his cortex, but it won out. He could ask. He could ask by message and leave it up to the Air Commander to decide if the personal request was worth his time. He did not check his own message queue until the end of shiftcycle. Starscream had responded, text only. Yes, he would, but tonight, and Barricade must agree to recharge with him. Barricade frowned. It seemed such an…odd request. But if the jet had meant interface, well, he wasn't shy about it—he'd taken Barricade (or the other way around) in front of half the crew in the refectory before. Recharge? Yes. He would. Even if it was the Air Commander suddenly being coy. His curiosity, his worry, would pay any price to have this burning worry assuaged.

Barricade had to restrain himself from racing to the large Seeker's quarters as the time Starscream had set on the message approached. The last thing he wanted to do was bother the jet…more than he had to. He chimed the door ten whole picokliks after the time Starscream had set. The door gave an 'enter' response and whooshed open.

Starscream sat on the berth, leaning against the wall, three empty cubes stacked in a little pyramid beside him. "Come in," he said, opening the seal on another cube. "I hope," he gestured, a little loosely, with one hand, "that you do not mind that I have begun preparing myself." Barricade froze. That…did not sound good.

"No," he said, quietly. "'M sorry. Don't have to do this."

"Nonsense, Barricade." Starscream patted the berth. "You may join me. This is not exactly unfamiliar terrain for you." He managed a weak grin.

Barricade climbed up next to him, unsure of what to do next. Starscream handed him an unopened cube. Barricade toyed with it nervously, his talons clicking over its surface.

"You said you wished to know about Thundercracker." Barricade nodded. "Skywarp told you to ask me?" Another nod. "Ah." The jet tossed his head back, taking the entire cube in one swallow. He let the empty cube and his hands drop to his lap, and sat, head tilted back against the wall, face to the ceiling. Barricade watched him, uncomfortable. Had the jet overcharged? Fallen into recharge? Was he ill? He shifted uncomfortably on the berth.

"Please wait," Starscream whispered. "Just a moment."

Barricade stilled himself, forcing himself to study the slosh of the pink Seeker-grade energon in his still-sealed cube. He was getting a distinctly bad feeling. No, that wasn't right. He'd had a bad feeling from the instant Skywarp had suggested this to him. This? This was just the resounding thud of his bad feeling being hammered home. He couldn't think of anything that would be this bad. Didn't want to think of it.

What he wanted right now most of all was to throw his arms around Skywarp protectively, which was ludicrous—he was half the Seeker's height, a fraction of his mass. Not to mention parsecs away. What Barricade could protect Skywarp from? Nothing. Maybe…maybe he just wanted to hold Skywarp for himself. To make himself feel better.

He found himself clutching the cube instead, lamely, when Starscream tilted his head down. The Seeker's optics rotated blearily, as if struggling to focus. Definitely, Barricade thought, overcharged.

"This is the boring part," Starscream said, idly rearranging his pile of empty cubes. "We are not, technically, a Trine. We were originally a Quaterne." He placed the four empty cubes in a diamond pattern. "Four of us," he said, softly. Barricade couldn't move, afraid any gesture would break the jet's train of thought. "Skyfire died," Starscream said, pushing one cube gently away from the others. His voice was scratchy and thin, as if it actually hurt him to say the words. "He died and then there were only the three of us."

A long pause. Starscream looked over at the full cubes on his other side, as if trying to decide.

"It is foolish to argue which of us was closest to him. Which of us suffered most at his loss. But we were young, and so we argued. Bitterly. We had no," he swallowed around a lump of something., "…no other way to understand our pain. Our loss." He turned back to the four empty cubes, picking one up and turning it over in his hands. The light glittered off the barbs on his hands.

"It is too bright in here," he said, suddenly. "I shall dim the lights." He waited for some sign from Barricade.

"Okay," Barricade said, clumsily. The lights dimmed and his optics cycled to lowlight, the jet's face becoming a mosaic of contoured shapes, harder to read.

Starscream continued toying with the emptied cube. "We…failed in our training. Task after task. We had gone from everyone's hope—the miracle of a functioning Quaterne—to the most inept Trine in our training cycle. It was…quite a fall from grace." His voice hitched. "Have you ever suffered a loss like this?" the jet asked. "You do not recover so easily from such a loss. You feel…hollowed out of everything good and rich and beautiful. You are, you feel like…at best a dry husk simply waiting, endlessly, to finally blow away. Waiting, almost impatiently, for that final wind." He held the empty cube up, as if it were a symbol.

Barricade ached, desperately wishing he knew what to do. Wanting to stop the jet from speaking, from feeling the pain he was so obviously feeling. Awkwardly, he reached out one hand to touch the jet's lowest leg joint. Starscream looked up at him, his optics struggling to focus. He smiled, sadly.

"It is all right, Barricade. It does not bother me to speak of it." A lie. Raw and redder than the jet's optics. He stroked one long talon down Barricade's hand, tracing around the wrist-tire. In any other circumstance it would have seemed flirtatious—now, it just seemed…unutterably sad. "And you have a right to know."

"We did…not cope well. I blamed myself—have always—" the jet corrected, his hand tightening on the empty cube, "blamed myself. There are reasons, which are irrelevant now. Suffice to say, I was…a drain on the others. Skywarp compensated by, I suppose, faking a lightheartedness he did not feel. He would design these…escapades, really, that would almost always be found out, and be punished for them." The jet's long talons traced idle letters on Barricade's forearm.

"I suppose, looking back on it, that he was doing that to try and be punished. To work out his own guilt. It is rather selfish of me—but I have always been selfish, I have been told—to imagine I lost more than the others. But…I was so busy trying to die that I could not pay attention to anyone else. And that is also, also my guilt." Starscream reached for another cube. "And, he knew that his tricks were the only things that made me laugh." He pierced the seal of the cube, and took a long sip. "He saved me, more than once."

"Sorry," Barricade said. There was so much to apologize for he couldn't even begin to narrow it down. Just…the naked pain on the jet's face. Yes, he'd been one of those who had written Starscream off: vain, arrogant, self-aggrandizing. He had never expected…this was underneath. He felt bad for his own shallow judgment.

A half-hearted smile from under downcast optics. "Skywarp has always deserved better than he has given himself." It was somehow a compliment, Barricade realized, just…somehow muddled by Starscream's overcharge. The bronze jet grabbed Barricade's wrist, hauling him forward. As the smaller mech watched, Starscream retracted his chest armor. "I want to show you this," Starscream said. "Maybe it will help you understand."

Barricade's capacitor fluttered in a kind of fear. This was so close to what he wanted—with Skywarp, the spark chamber there, open to the air, just…an arm's reach away. But this was not Skywarp.

Starscream tapped his chamber cover. It looked battered, dented. "Skyfire's," he said, softly. He craned his own neck to look down at it, tracing the contours as if it were his most beloved possession. "Thundercracker got it for me." His talons curled over it possessively. Barricade wondered what it would be like—to wear the armor of a dead mech. It was a tradition among the warriors, a way to commemorate fallen comrades.

Barricade couldn't think of anyone who would do that for him. Except Skywarp, who held his spark cover as if it was too fragile to be real. But he wouldn't want to have to be dead. He wouldn't want to cause Skywarp the pain the Starscream had felt—obviously still felt.

"Thundercracker," Starscream began. Hesitated. Reached for the half-full cube and took another long drink. "Thundercracker decided that what had failed all of us—Skyfire, me, Skywarp—was a lack of discipline. A lack of respect and order. I imagine that was his way of coping, as well—to match his feelings of lack of control with demonstrations of absolute control."

He took another drink, reluctantly sliding his armor closed. "What can I say? We…accepted his control because it punished us, and for a long time it felt like love. Felt like someone taking care of us, giving us what we deserved. The spark chamber cover, for example. A loving, poignant gesture. Also, though, a reminder—of Skyfire's death, and my obligations." He looked up, seeing the still sealed cube in Barricade's hand. "Please, have some? I shall feel like a truly poor host if you do not."

That wasn't the real reason, Barricade thought. Even for Starscream. He felt like he was beginning to be able to see through the arrogance, the sarcasm, to…this. Something awful was coming up—even more awful—and Starscream wanted him to have the cushion of overcharge. He obediently opened the cube and drank. The warm fizz of the energon raced through his systems. Before it had felt like joy: now it merely fueled his worry, tasted like soured hopes.

"Thundercracker controlled us, as much as one can control anyone. Which is, perhaps, more than you think." Starscream tilted his head back against the wall. "I apologize. The overcharge is making me…inept with words."

Barricade waited, fighting the rising charge from the energon desperately.

"It helped our drills, Thundercracker's domination. We suddenly began performing well. A miraculous comeback." His smile turned bitter. "Yes. And…he…well, I do not know his motives. Perhaps he considered that his control would make us happy in other ways. Perhaps he merely desired to see how much we would endure, how much of ourselves we were willing to give over to him."

"I do not mean to upset you, Barricade. But this must be said." Starscream pulled the smaller mech against him, not even noticing when the action sloshed energon into his elbow joint. Barricade found his face shoved somewhere between the jet's arm and torso. Starscream smelled warm and clean and far too much like Skywarp. "Skywarp was forced to—forced to, please understand—violate me." His arm tightened around Barricade as the smaller mech stiffened. Even with this admission trying to protect Skywarp, protect Barricade. "Yes," Starscream said, soothingly. "It was ages ago, Barricade. Ages. It is all right."

Barricade felt himself tremble. Skywarp? For a klik he couldn't see it, but then it was as if things snapped into focus and he could—Skywarp's mocking tone, the first time, commanding Starscream to involve Barricade in the first place; ordering the bronze jet to spike him; Starscream's meek submission to his dark-armored Trine mate. But no, part of his cortex howled. Skywarp…. …had avoided—and then this too snapped into focus, hard and sharp enough to cut—spiking him. Only that once. And Barricade could see—as if it was a datatrack spooling out in front of him—Skywarp throwing Starscream down, thrusting into him, growling like a feral thing.

"Not…ages ago," he managed. Why would Starscream even want to touch Skywarp?

"No," Starscream murmured. "He gives me what I need now."

"And…Onslaught?" Barricade thought shamefully of the other night when he had walked in on that.

"Onslaught can fill some gaps." The jet's hands stroked soothingly down Barricade's back kibble. "But that is my damage, and nothing for you to concern yourself with."

"Skywarp…."

"Is terrified that he will hurt you, yes. Thundercracker…brings out a darkness in him that you have not yet seen, and he…does not want to lose you. Or, I imagine, himself."

"Won't," Barricade said, aware of the petulance in his own voice.

"He will push you away—for your own safety perhaps. Perhaps to assuage his ego—reject you before you reject him."

Barricade's talons tightened into the servos of Starscream's arm. "Won't let him."

"Good," Starscream breathed. He hauled Barricade up onto his lap, pressing the smaller mech's back against his cockpit. "Do not let him." He folded his long arms around Barricade, squeezing him for comfort—but whose?

"Hate Thundercracker." Under the jet's heavy arms, his talons balled into fists. Nowhere near as lethal looking as Starscream's or Thundercracker's heavily barbed hands, chain-gunned forearms, but furious enough. For what he had done to Skywarp. To Starscream, even, that the bronze mech, whom he'd once written off as detestable, arrogant, could speak so calmly of his own mistreatment. Could forgive it.

I would forgive Skywarp anything, Barricade thought. But even so….

"Do not, little Barricade. Hate will not solve anything." Starscream ducked his head, nuzzling into Barricade's helm. Barricade could smell the energon on his vents—the air almost prickling from it. "Hate never solves anything. Skywarp and I have learned that lesson."


	25. Closing the Distance

A/N:Still no smut but enough flying-fetish to make up for it. Maybe.

Barricade mumbled blearily as the berth heaved underneath him. No…it wasn't the berth. It was Starscream. The last recharge cycle all came back to him in a rush—Starscream, overcharged, deliberately, filling him with horror about Skywarp's past. And Thundercracker. Starscream could say it and even, as a command line officer, ORDER it, but he couldn't make Barricade not hate Thundercracker. And the fact that Skywarp was right now…with him? His spark felt like it was guttering for what the black Seeker must be enduring.

"Sorry," he mumbled, to the air, to Skywarp, to…whoever. He tried, clumsily, to roll off the Seeker's chassis. They'd fallen into recharge together, the bronze jet clutching him like a toy.

"Do not apologize, Barricade," Starscream murmured. "There is still plenty of time before you must awake for shiftcycle. You are welcome to stay here. However, if I am to be of any use at all," and Barricade could hear the bitter twist in the jet's voice, "I must fly off this excess charge."

Barricade remembered that Skywarp had had to do that—fly off the excess energy. He'd come back frigid cold, but what Barricade remembered most was the feel of his arms around him. And he ached with longing right now, and knew that if he stayed alone—in his recharge or Starscream's—he would be devoured with worry. "C'n I come with you?"

Starscream stopped on his way to the door. "But I had heard that you hated flying." Yes, but he hated lying here wracked with worry even more. Starscream must have seen something like that on his face, because he added, "Of course you may." He tilted his head. "If, that is…you think you can keep up."

[*****]

Skywarp sucked in a deep vent, wishing he had the courage to call Barricade one last time, as the armorer loaded in supplemental rounds. The mission was simple: a high-sky strafing run. Low chance of high altitude intercept, but then, of course, they'd swing under and run harrying engagements with Autobot aerial forces. Dogfights. He hated to admit he was ready for one. WANTED one: needed some place for his aggression and anger to go. Some place he could safely channel the turgid restless violence inside him.

He hated that he WANTED it so badly.

He did his job: he was a warrior and a Decepticon. He didn't regret the violence or the damage he did. He didn't wake from his recharge haunted by images of shattered mechs, violent fireballs of death he knew he had caused. This was war. The same could happen to him at any time, so it would be foolish and more to get worked up about that. Fate, or destiny, both with lower-case letters.

What pulled him from recharge was the knowledge he enjoyed it. Wanted it. Could not function without it.

He grunted as the bots finished speed loading his magazines. He stepped aside. Two other loaders finished installing the extra missile racks to his wing plates.

Thundercracker grinned at him, lifting his arms to the speed loading racks. "Looking eager," he observed.

"I want to get it over with."

"So do I." Thundercracker had his own reasons. Skywarp was too wrapped up in his own to even begin to figure them out. Thundercracker winced, stopping to glare at a loader bot that had slipped, its sharp loading pincers grasping onto his plating for balance. "Clumsy thing," he hissed. He looked up, aware of Skywarp's gaze. He shrugged. "One gets tired of automatons. Such…thoughtless obedience."

Skywarp nodded, dully. Obedience. That was what Thundercracker really wanted, only a twisted, abstruse kind. One that knew when he wanted resistance or submission. Both were a kind of obedience, and Skywarp hated that he gave in to them. He wished he had the courage to shout to Thundercracker what he was. What he had made them become. All of them.

No, that was unfair. They each held some blame. It was puerile to make Thundercracker the sole responsibility. Starscream had told him that, cycles and cycles and cycles repeating it until he'd finally understood Starscream's point. They bore their own blame. He couldn't say anything. He hoped the action spoke as loud as the words that he found himself…again…too cowardly to say. What burned in him, unable to escape in words, fueled his darkness.

He walked away, his uparmored limbs clanking heavily against the floor.

[****]

Barricade bore the hooking-in of the propulsion pack with impatience. He didn't want to be standing here going through the three rounds of functional redundancy checks. He wanted to be…out there, moving around, where his entire attention had to be focused on the four-dimensional HUD navigation display, with no extra processing speed to think about Skywarp.

"Reason for flight?" Dirge said, listlessly, resettling himself behind the monitor. He was the Flight Watch.

"Overcharge flight," Starscream said, coolly. Dirge logged it into the console.

"And him?" He tilted his headcone at Barricade.

"Overcharge flight," Starscream repeated, pointedly.

Dirge looked up, looked over at Barricade, and then dropped his optics to his monitor. Not worth making a fuss over. He waved them into the takeoff hangar. Yellow lights flared warning as the spaceside door slowly moved aside. The hangar's atmosphere and gravity dissipated like vapor, the air suddenly full of tiny crystals rushing outward in the sudden breeze caused by the change in pressure, the sound muffled.

/Are you prepared?/Starscream asked, politely. /I can guide you out of the hangar./

/Can do it./ Barricade winced, hoping that didn't sound as snappish over internal comm as it probably did. Starscream was only being polite. It's just that…he wasn't used to Starscream being polite. Wasn't used to ANYONE being nice to him.

Well, have to actually put deeds to words, now. He clicked the throttle of the pro-pack, the thrusters pushing against the thin atmosphere, moving him slowly, and a little awkwardly, toward the door. Starscream waited until he had cleared the way before leaping out the door himself, into the black velvet of space, folding effortlessly into his jet mode. The markings he had etched onto himself joined together in an intricate design that Barricade wished he could read.

Starscream raced through the darkness, his thrusters quickly diminishing to tiny dots, indistinguishable from the stars. Barricade, by contrast, puttered at medium speed, doing visual checks of his six to see the comforting bulk of the Nemesis hung behind him, a long massive shape cut out of the stars. He wasn't afraid, but it was just…comforting to know it was there.

Starscream whipped past him, carving an elegant series of maneuvers against the darkness. Barricade thought of Skywarp—he'd never seen the black jet fly. He felt a rush of guilt—that something so big, so important, so OBVIOUS to a Seeker like flying? He'd never even seen Skywarp do it. He determined to get better at pro-pack flying. He'd never be anywhere near as good as an airframe, but he wanted to do it. To NOT be left out.

Starscream appeared in front of him, flipping into his bipedal mode, his jets keeping him at an easy hover. /Enjoying?/the bronze jet asked.

/Good to get out./ He really wanted to ask Starscream if he'd help him learn to fly. Close the distance he was feeling between Skywarp and himself. Let him know, really KNOW, one thing to make up for all he didn't, and couldn't know. But he didn't dare. This was…his problem. His insecurity.

/Shall I take you farther out?/

Barricade's fear clenched at his spark. Too many memories of terror, laughed at, left floating, or caromed with such circuit-stressing bravado, dragging him less than a hand-span above the surface of the ship. No. That would not happen now. That was what he had to get over. Did Skywarp matter that much to him? Yes. Unreservedly.

/Yes./ He tried not to make a complete fool of himself, clutching onto the jet's forearms as Starscream gently wrapped them around him, watching the ship recede further behind him with a determination not to worry. Did he trust Starscream? Not as much as he trusted Skywarp, but more than he trusted himself.

[****]

Skywarp pulled out of his last bombing run, activating the locks that bound the bomb racks under his wings. Empty now, the racks dropped off his armor, sailing toward the battlefield below. A field expedient weapon, stabbing at terminal velocity with lethal force. The Decepticon way was to let nothing go to waste. Everything was a weapon. Even junk metal.

He waited for the signal. He and Thundercracker, as the heaviest, the largest, of the air support, were to engage first. He fell behind Thundercracker, letting the blue jet, with his unmistakable engine roar, zip a one sided flat-scissor over the battlefield, aiming on drawing out Autobot anti-aircraft positions as much as engaging Autobot fliers. He was impossible not to take notice of, and several Autobots took to the air in pursuit.

Skywarp's cue, and he tried to suppress the fierce thrill that throttled up with his thrusters as he dove into pursuit. He opened with his main guns, rounds spattering across the sky, tracers sketching a blazing purple line toward the plane nearest to Thundercracker's tail. His HUD blazed triumphantly as the Autobot's main engine burst into sparking flames. It shouldn't feel this good. But right now was not the time to think about that.

Thundercracker did a fast Kulbit, whipping up in a loop and coming down behind his next pursuer. Skywarp sliced through the flustered mass, before they could regroup after Thundercracker. Two of the scattered flyers zipped after him in a double scissors, zigzagging through the air behind him, attempting to box him in. Amateurs, for one thing. For another, they lacked the dark hunger that right now Skywarp was struggling to keep down.

He waited until the two planes zipped into close-targeting range. He could hear the pings of their systems trying to lock on him. Lock on this, he thought, and slammed his thrust direction upward to near stall, his nose going vertical for a few kliks before the drag on his tail dropped the nose forward again. Their shots winged uselessly by him, overcalculating his flight path. And he was now several lengths behind where they thought he was. Classic overshoot. A tactical mistake, one that a flight-pair should know better than to fall into. Their loss. A heavy loss.

He picked the larger plane—more of a threat, more heavily armed—and accelerated after it. A missile, this time, he thought. Just for variety. He clicked on his autotarget: a game he liked to play. Outguess his own shell's targeting solutions. The reticles were still blinking their way to a target lock when he fired, the missile slicing through the sky. He pulled a vectored turn without even waiting to see it hit home. He knew it would: the dark tide in him fed him that much. He barely registered the explosion on his audio and 360, searching for another target.

His HUD scanned, and his processor suddenly thought of Barricade. What would the little grounder think of him, if he were watching? Would he worry? There was no need to worry. Skywarp certainly never wasted any of that on himself. War was war, and warriors took their chances.

And, in a way, it would be a relief if he did die. Barricade would never have to know who he truly was, never have to see this for himself. Thundercracker would make sure he was remembered as a hero, a valiant warrior, untainted. Pure. And he…he would finally be free of himself.

His HUD fed him a flock of Autobots clumsily mobbing up on another Decepticon jet. Too easy. He should be ashamed to take advantage of their lack of skill, their inexperience. But he wasn't. War was war.

And Skywarp was Skywarp.

[****]

/The difficulty of the barrel roll,/ Starscream explained, /is coming out of it on your initial plane. That being said, it is one of the most basic maneuvers for flight. First I shall demonstrate it. Then I shall take you on a flight so that you may feel the equilibrium shift. Then you shall try./

/Don't need to talk down to me. Pro-packed before,/ Barricade muttered.

/I am not talking down to you, Barricade. This is how we learned. If anything I am being dreadfully unoriginal in pedagogy./

Barricade shrank back. Starscream was right. And if nothing else he should shut up and at least appreciate the fact that the Air Commander was stooping so low as to giving him any sort of flying lessons at all.

Starscream smiled. /You should have seen how Skywarp struggled with this. He had the hardest time adjusting his yaw. For a decacycle we called him 'Wobbles'./

Barricade knew that the bronze jet had said that deliberately—he could have dredged up a thousand memories of learning to fly, but instead he called up the one that linked Barricade with Skywarp. And made it okay to struggle with this. He nodded.

/Watch./ Starscream headed directly away from him, his thrusters two bright, level dots that suddenly twisted in a tight, even helix before returning to level. /That was the maneuver. This is an application of it./ The thrusters changed angle, as the jet pulled into a vertical arc, doing another tight roll at the top to right himself as he flew back to where Barricade hovered. /Ready?/

Barricade nodded, cutting the thrusters of his pro-pack, letting the jet clamp his long forearms around him.

/Feel safe?/

/Fine,/he said, testily. /Sorry. Yes. Thank you for asking./

Starscream laughed—Barricade could feel the vibration against his back. /During the maneuver, look toward the angle of thrust. If you look 'down' you will get ill. Especially on ground-based applications./ Barricade felt the thrusters power up steadily, their acceleration picking up. He couldn't see it—there was nothing close enough he could gauge his speed against—but he could feel the speed like a pressure against his dermal plating. He looked up into their direction of travel.

His insides suddenly lurched as the jet initiated the maneuver. It was precise and clean even with the added drag of Barricade's non-aerodynamic mass. It felt exhilarating—not at all like his own clumsy attempts to turn in a pro-pack.

/I shall let you feel a wobble. It is of no significance now without a present level horizon, but it is good practice. Your flight HUD should have a horizon indication leveler to adjust to./ Starscream initiated another barrel roll, this time coming out deliberately sloppy, his shoulders wobbling along the flight path. /It is not a fatal error, but one you should strive to avoid./ He then flipped up into the same Immelmann turn to return them back to that particular point of nothing and no place they had started.

/Are you ready to try, Barricade?/

The mech shrunk back. /Never be that good./

Starscream laughed again. /Flattery?/ Then more seriously, /No one is very good the first time they try this. Even those who are born to it. If you let fear of not doing it well hold you back…will you ever be able to do it well?/

/Just that…./ He keyed the controls awkwardly. Trying to run his command line through the sequence of actions.

/Silence. And try. It is all you can do. Fear, like hatred, only serves to hold you back./ Barricade felt the jet's arms tighten around him briefly, before releasing him. /Let nothing hold you back./

[****]

The mission was a success. The ground forces, routed, scurried back to their little hideyholes, demoralized as piece after piece of their airborne comrades clattered down around them, their own flyer's shattered frames turned into blunt weapons against them. Thundercracker had had to call Skywarp away—twice—the black jet had sunken into his darkness so deeply that he almost didn't hear, so intent he was on inflicting damage to the enemy. He still had rounds and they still had lives.

He snarled at the second summons, tearing himself away with one last salvo at the retreating enemy.

/Magnificent,/ Thundercracker said as they rocketed out of the atmosphere and toward the station. /You are beautiful when you are…so fully engaged./

Skywarp growled, his processor still running over the battle. Half for improved tactical solutions, but half for a pure dark enjoyment of the destruction he had caused. He had, for his measure, a handful of hits on his undercarriage, one of which had offlined one of his pitch rudders, but he had flown in far worse condition. And against his dull black, the damage barely showed.

He wondered, again, what Barricade would think. Would he be horrified? In awe? Would he find him 'magnificent'?

The aggression from the battle kicked over abruptly into his other systems. He wanted Barricade right now. WANTED him. Wanted to feel the smaller mech squirming underneath him, hear the metal of Barricade's grille against his cockpit, feel the firm push of the wrist tires under his hands as he pinned him down, smell the grounder's exterior joint lubricant. As he adjusted his path, muttering at having to correct for his damaged rudder, he let that idea take hold of him. A reward, for pulling himself out. For at the very least, staying off the ground, where he was…truly terrifying.

Yes. Barricade, under him, his wrists struggling under Skywarp's larger hands, his doorwings flattened onto the berth, his optics open and trusting.

And more than a little afraid. Skywarp had to ease his throttle as it wanted to rev at the thought of fear in the little mech's optics—the four red lenses spiraled wide, beginning to question his trust; the squirming becoming more frantic, not just play but a real attempt to get away; and he wasn't on the grounder's spike but driving into him with his own, feeling the metal of his body clang against Barricade, driving aside the mech's desperately thrashing legs; a strangled squeak as Skywarp sank his talons into the wrist tires hard enough that pneumatic fluid welled out. Hrrrrrngh. He wanted that. No reason he could not have that: unstoppable, even if Barricade did try to fight. He could force him to do anything, physically or mentally. Barricade would let him. And forgive him. What was stopping him, anyway? Take what you want. You want to hear him beg? You can. He will beg and cry and plead all you want.

You know he wants it. You saw him with Onslaught. He liked it. He needs it. You hold back because you think you can't stop yourself.

Maybe he doesn't want you to stop yourself.

No.

Skywarp jammed his throttle so far back he felt the pull of gravity try to hook into him. And for a nano-klik, he hung, suspended in his own inertia, hung in horror. No. He couldn't do that, even in fantasy. He didn't want to. He didn't want to want to.

Thundercracker slowed. /Everything all right?/

Skywarp found a fast, smooth lie. /Rudder damage. Just wanted to disable the system before hitting the tropopause./ He moved forward again. Hating himself even more for the lie.

/Good thinking./ Thundercracker waited for Skywarp to catch up to him. /I'm so glad they sent you. I knew you were perfect for this mission. Let's get back and celebrate. And rest up for our return flight./

Skywarp felt a bitter burn in his core. Skywarp had no choice. He was returning with Thundercracker to the Nemesis. The distance which had kept him safe, had kept Barricade safe in his swathing of illusion, would be closed.

/And Skywarp? It's good to see you acting like your old self again./


	26. Return

A/N: Sorry about having to mark the hiatuses so obviously-apparently FFN now noms formatting. :/

Barricade waited where Starscream had positioned him in the hangar, between the two rations of high grade energon. Starscream himself had flown out into the darkness to meet Skywarp: a courtesy, perhaps. Barricade wished he had the nerve to take a pro-pack, but his fear of screwing up in front of Skywarp and jetting off at some mad vector needing to be pathetically rescued kept him inside. And, to be honest, Starscream hadn't offered.

But Barricade couldn't help but think that something more was going on. Starscream had seemed…worried. He wouldn't tell Barricade why, nor did he explain why they needed TWO rats of high grade instead of one. He felt the cold of space from the gaping hangar door eat into his stilled circuitry. He tried to tell himself that that was the reason for his sudden shiver.

He tried not to look nervous, even though there was no one around to see him. He wanted Skywarp so badly he could almost feel himself reaching out toward the open hangar door, as if he were pulling away from himself bodily to reach for the black mech. As if he could connect a line between his spark and Skywarp's and pull him home. Something like worry and homesickness and a dreadful urge to hear and know that Skywarp was all right stirred in him. Skywarp had been with Thundercracker, and Barricade could not stop his processor from running, over and over and over again, a thousand scenarios of what that might mean, given what Starscream had told him.

He wanted to hold Skywarp, feel for himself that the black jet was all right. Feel that he himself was all right, and safe and…still loved. He just…wanted to know.

Funny to think: when Skywarp had left, his only concern was that Skywarp would forget about him.

He heard the loud roar of an unfamiliar engine, three shapes cutting themselves out of the backdrop of stars. Three? He felt his engine stall.

The jets unfolded gracefully, landing lightly on the hangar's floor with their delicately bladed feet. Starscream first, his bronze toes almost achingly familiar—Barricade remembered his hangover, when he had mistaken those for Skywarp's toes, with a sudden flush of embarrassed memory. The other two landed simultaneously. Skywarp wobbled where he stood, the cold of space mazed in whitish traceries of ice over his greased frame. The third jet was blue, with the same crystalline frost, and similar enough in design—he must be Thundercracker. Barricade's capacitor skipped current, torn between a kind of rage he had never felt and a worry that burned like acid. He didn't know if he should move forward or retreat into the shadows. For the first time, it seemed, he looked at the jets and saw how very lethal they were.

The yellow lights flared and the large spaceside door rumbled closed, cutting off the cold, but also the freedom and space. It felt suddenly, even to Barricade, confined.

Skywarp stepped forward to hug Starscream, and stumbled. Barricade saw the ankle gyroscopic stabilizers spin wildly, and that settled him. He snatched up one of the cubes and strode forward. Thundercracker was not going to stand in the way of him taking care of Skywarp. He shot a glower at the blue jet as he walked by, even though his optic line was only at Thundercracker's hip.

He held the cube up to Skywarp. "Here." He quailed, seeing how Skywarp's hands shook, the frozen grease flaking off his joints as he moved them to take the cube.

"Thank you, Barricade," Skywarp said, his voice somehow strained and tight. He tossed the entire cube back at a swallow, his optics shuttering as it hit his systems. "Thank you," he repeated, dumbly.

"And does your little grounder servant have one for me?" Barricade's shoulder wings flinched at the tone of Thundercracker's voice. Deep and haughty. The words stung. 'Servant'? What had Skywarp told him? Anything?

"No," Starscream said, smoothly. "I have brought you energon, Thundercracker."

Barricade looked up at Skywarp, worriedly. The black jet's face was exhausted, the optics flickering faint, the facial plates flaking with grease. He hoped for a smile, trying not to feel crushed when Skywarp merely nodded.

Behind him, Starscream was talking quietly to Thundercracker—meaningless chatter about the flight conditions, their pace. Skywarp's attention drifted to that. Barricade felt…pathetically, inexcusably, left out. Nonexistent. He couldn't follow half of the conversation and Skywarp wasn't even looking at him. He tried hard not to feel hurt. Skywarp was obviously exhausted. He needed rest. And Barricade wanted nothing more than to be with him, snugged together in the EM field he could already feel fuzzing up around him. He felt his hand reaching out to touch Skywarp, drew it back.

The black jet pushed by him, past the other two. "Tired," he said. "Recharge."

"I thought," Thundercracker said, "we would recharge together. The three of us." Barricade's entire system froze.

"No." Skywarp stopped, midstride, his head turned over his shoulder. "No."

Thundercracker gaped.

"Thundercracker," Starscream interjected, stepping again between the two, "Skywarp is exhausted. You know that he is not very good company when he is like this." Starscream ran a hand over the blue collar armor. "And you, no doubt, are tired as well. And in need of cleaning and recharge. Why do you not let me take care of you?"

Thundercracker tilted his cheek against Starscream's hand. "But…Skywarp?" He sounded honestly confused. Skywarp continued his steady march to the hangar's shipside door.

"…will be fine. Barricade?" Starscream prompted. "You would do me a great favor if you would assist Skywarp. He can instruct you in what he requires."

Barricade's gaze bounced between Starscream and Skywarp's retreating back. He refused to even think of Thundercracker or his stupid opinion. The door whooshed open to let Skywarp pass. Barricade raced after the black jet, not even caring how foolish his smaller, scurrying legs looked.

[***]

Skywarp had to get away. He couldn't escape what he really wanted to, which was himself, so he had to settle instead for getting away from those he might hurt. Before he did something…regrettable.

He hated regret. Had spent his lifetime avoiding it. And found he regretted even that.

Thundercracker had kept up a stream of amiable chatter for most of the flight, not noticing—or not deigning to notice—Skywarp's louring mood. And then…Barricade had been there, in the hangar, his face sweet and pure and hopeful and Skywarp had wanted to do nothing more than to drop to his knees and crush the smaller mech to him. But he didn't trust himself to brave Thundercracker's reaction. Not now, not so under-charged and frail and…unsteady on more than just his feet.

He didn't trust himself, either.

He did the best he could, which was harmless empty pleasantries with Barricade. 'Thank you.' As if he could ever manage to fill that empty phrase with what he really felt. Right now he didn't even know what he really felt—confusion and fear and worry and a vague unfocused anger and a desperate, desperate need to be reassured. And an equally keen awareness that he might damage the very thing he wanted.

No. He had to deny himself. Deny…himself until he could be trusted to control himself. If he hurt Barricade, the mech would forgive him, but he would never forgive himself. It was better to just get away now, at least until he had mastered himself. Before he couldn't stop himself from shattering it entirely.

The door whooshed closed behind him, and then open again. Oh no. He turned.

Barricade stood there, balanced, almost mid-stride, looking frantic and caught out. A long moment. The door whooshed shut again behind Barricade.

"D-d'you not want me to come with you?"

"I…it's better if…." Words guttered and died. Skywarp dropped to one knee, landing heavily enough to ding the floor. Barricade closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around Skywarp's shoulders as far as he could reach.

"Missed you," Barricade blurted, his voice muffled against Skywarp's chassis.

"I…can't talk right now," Skywarp managed. "Really."

"Don't have to." The talons tightened around the armor plates. Not as a threat—Skywarp could break Barricade's talons without thinking—but as a mute attempt to express something he could not say. Don't push me away. Just let me stay. And then he said the word that broke Skywarp's resolve. "Please?"

"All right," Skywarp said, surrendering. Barricade had asked so little from him—was still asking so little. Not demanding an explanation or confronting Skywarp with his long deceits, with his unconscionable rudeness a few kliks ago. Merely…wanting to be with him, in whatever way Skywarp would let him. He scooped Barricade against him before releasing him and rising to walk, unsteadily, down the corridor, the smaller mech trotting at his bladed heels.

[***]

Starscream wrapped his arms around Thundercracker's narrow waist. "I have missed you, Thundercracker."

Thundercracker grinned against Starscream's throat. "I've missed you, too. We have so much to catch up on." He ran his icy hands greedily over Starscream's back, the talons hooking around the engine mounts. "Skywarp seemed…distracted when he arrived. Is everything all right?"

Starscream shrugged, lightly, brushing Thundercracker's mouth with his own. "The investigation here has some…complications." He licked between Thundercracker's lips, teasingly. "It is nothing to worry about."

Thundercracker leaned in, his glossa probing between Starscream's own lips, before pulling away. "He always takes his job too seriously. And unfortunately nothing else." Thundercracker cast a shadowed glance at the door Skywarp and Barricade had exited.

Starscream's supraorbital plates creased together for a fraction of a klik in worry. He pulled Thundercracker into a deeper kiss, his talons skating over the blue helm, his other hand sliding down the mech's torso for his interface panel. "I think," he murmured, "You are the one taking things too seriously."

Thundercracker grinned. "You're probably right." He paused to nuzzle against Starscream, running his hands down the bronze jet's arms. "But…what have you done to yourself?" He traced a talon along one of Starscream's deeply etched markings. "Oh, Starscream. You're not…?" His optics were worried.

"No," Starscream said, hastily. He pulled his arm away. "I shall explain that later."

Thundercracker frowned for a long moment, as if expecting merely that to have an effect. Starscream shook his head. Thundercracker shrugged, as if it didn't matter to him. "You'll tell me if it's important," the blue jet said, sliding one arm over Starscream's hip. "I trust you."

[***]

Barricade worked tirelessly with the metal brush, sweeping away the crusted greased. He'd suggested the washracks and oiler to Skywarp, but hadn't dared to repeat the idea when he saw the hooded response. Skywarp had merely asked him if it was too much to brush him.

The black jet hadn't meant it as an insult—it was the most considerate question he could ask—but it still stung. So he'd scrubbed with the brush for cycles, the only exchanges between them his periodic questioning if he was too hard and Skywarp's repeated denial. He could feel the black jet softening as he lay there, Barricade bent over his leg, brass-bristled brush schussing at an even pace back and forth around the edge of the armor plate, the crusted grease of his travel slowly peeling off him in purple fragments. The rhythm soothed Barricade's anxiety almost as much as touching Skywarp.

"Barricade?" Skywarp asked suddenly. "Come here?"

"Not finished," Barricade said, looking up, the brush stilled in his hands. "Hands gunky."

Skywarp smiled, and it looked like a ghost of the smile Barricade remembered. "_I'm_ gunky." He raised one arm, and Barricade was a little embarrassed at how quickly he flung the brush aside and crept into the circle of that arm. He felt Skywarp's face brush the spires of his head. "Little spike," Skywarp breathed. Barricade felt himself loosen at the endearment. Barricade risked throwing an arm over Skywarp's chest, the center of his chassis against Skywarp's side. He could feel his spark chamber pulsing, almost to the armor.

"You talked to Starscream?" Skywarp asked. He coded the lights to off, the darkness settling around them like a protective blanket, something that cut everything else out of the world until it was just the two of them, limbs intertwined.

"Yes," Barricade said. He struggled to think of what else to say. He'd had whole speeches prepared: exhortations to leave the blue jet, questions about how to punish a Trine mate, soft murmuring reassurances that nothing had changed between them. What he most wanted to do, what he knew he couldn't do, was ask about it, bring that pain to the surface so he could attempt to make it go away. Ridiculous thought, that your words or your touch could heal, could make any difference. Only make things worse, when you try.

So instead, he lay there, dumb and mute, hoping foolishly that things would just somehow magically get better, and trying not to read too much invitation into the embrace.

"What did he tell you?" Skywarp gritted his denta. He had unfairly made Starscream take his burden—he had, like a coward, shifted the pain of memory and articulation onto Starscream, instead of doing it himself. He was a coward, but not this much. He would make sure Barricade heard the whole truth.

"Doesn't matter," Barricade said, burying his face in Skywarp's armor, his talons once again clutching fiercely, possessively around the black plates.

"It does matter, little spike." Skywarp stroked his free hand down the smaller mech's back, grinning fondly as Barricade's systems hitched. If nothing else, and this thought echoed bitterly from his memory, Barricade still desired him. And a dark quiet voice in his cortex purred, you could take him. Have him. And he wouldn't mind. Would take the pain and think of it as love. Skywarp knew too intimately what that was like. Skywarp clutched Barricade closer, as though the smaller mech were a shield against his thoughts. "Please tell me?"

"That you…and…Starscream…had done bad things with each other." The words started slow, then tumbled out too fast. And wrong. But Barricade couldn't bring himself to repeat the actual words. "And that he forgave you," he added, hurriedly. He didn't want Skywarp to think Starscream had blamed him for anything.

Skywarp reached down and dug Barricade's chin out of the crook between his arm and his body. "Look at me, little spike," he said, his voice pitiful and thin. "I violated Starscream. I beat him. I took him against his will any time, any way I wanted. I would laugh when he'd beg me to stop. No, please," Barricade was squirming with discomfort, but Skywarp was determined. While his courage held, he would have this out. He would say it. So that Barricade could have no misconceptions about who or what he'd let into his life. "And…and not just Starscream. Any mech. Anyone I wanted or…that Thundercracker wanted to see. Sometimes they fought. A lot of times they cried. And…it aroused me." He could no longer bear to look at the four optics, brimming with emotions he couldn't even read. Pity? Horror? Disgust? He turned his face away, giving into his cowardice. Barricade had once thought he was too disgusting for Skywarp: the opposite was the truth.

"I'm sorry." Skywarp's voice crackled. Pathetic. 'I'm sorry'. Like that would do any good. Like that made anything better. His hands curled into fists around the smaller mech, talons digging below his own palm plates. He hissed in relief at the onset of the pain.

He lay there, inwardly writhing. A moan of sheer, weak agony escaped him when he felt Barricade move. The smaller mech was leaving him.

Well, he had the right. And…it was for the best. Best for Barricade—better if Skywarp hadn't let it get this far, but...they were beyond that now. His breath hitched in a sob of shame. He deserved this. For what he had become. For deceiving Barricade that he was anything but this. He deserved far worse, but at the least, he could endure this—barely—without making it worse for the smaller mech. No. He wouldn't try to fight it. Let Barricade leave. As clean a break as he could make it. Not let himself succumb to his cowardice and beg. He held his body still.

Barricade threw his arms around Skywarp's neck. "Doesn't matter," he said, determinedly. "Love you."

Skywarp tried to disentangle the smaller mech's arms from around his neck. This time, Barricade struggled, clamping his fingers around armor. "Barricade," he began, pleading.

"No," Barricade insisted. "Yours. You always said so."

"You don't understand," Skywarp squirmed, his entire body trying to get away. "I…I'm wrong. Inside. There's something awful in me."

"Doesn't matter," Barricade murmured.

"Barricade," Skywarp's voice came out as a shredded whisper. "I'm not…."

Barricade lifted his head, meeting Skywarp's gaze. "You are." He held Skywarp's optics with all the determination he had in his own.


	27. Inscribed

A/N Warning: May be triggering for cutting or self-harm. Please do not read if this may disturb you. :CCC

In this chapter, we discover a bit about Starscream's tattoos which Thundercracker seemed so unimpressed with last time.

Thundercracker purred as Starscream worked the brush over his joints. "It was almost worth the flight to get this kind of attention," he teased.

"It is a luxury one deserves after a trying flight," Starscream said. He paused to sweep the purple flakes of dried grease off of the armor plating. "And it dulls your finish. I recall how you like your shine."

Thundercracker smiled. "I am a vain little creature, aren't I?"

Starscream smirked back. "You may try, but I shall always be more alluring than you."

Thundercracker considered. "The bare metal look does stand out, yes. Much better than that…thing Skywarp does."

"I find that it suits him." Starscream did not want to discuss Skywarp. Not yet. Thundercracker needed to be in a more receptive mood. He knew he could not lie, nor keep Skywarp's relationship with the little grounder a secret. It was, he knew, entirely self-protection. If he was not colluding to hide it from Thundercracker, the blue jet would spare him punishment. At the same time, he had enough loyalty to Skywarp not to want to cast him into danger.

They were a Trine. They were all each other had.

And, he consoled himself, if Thundercracker heard about it from him, he would have time to calm down before confronting Skywarp. Starscream knew that there was no chance for him to talk anything like reason into Thundercracker—the blue jet was rigid in his beliefs. If only he didn't insist that his Trine follow them as well, there would be no friction at all.

"Besides," Starscream added, coyly, "I had rather flattered myself into thinking you were here to be with me! Skywarp has had plenty of your attention over the last decacycle." He lowered his optic shutters as Thundercracker trailed one hand up his arm. Thundercracker so often withheld his affection from Starscream—his craving for it was genuine. It was just also very useful at the moment.

He leaned into Thundercracker's touch. "I missed you," the blue jet murmured. "Not just this way, either. I missed having someone I could…talk to, you know? Without having to explain everything."

Starscream felt himself warm. Thundercracker had his quirks, but he really did have their best interests at heart. They were a Trine. One of the best. And in no small part thanks to Thundercracker. "I have missed seeing your smile," he murmured. Thundercracker was always so unhappy. Always so stiff and formal. So very rarely did Starscream get to see him like this—loose, relaxed, open. Almost…happy.

He wanted Thundercracker to be happy. As well as Skywarp. He regretted that he felt this desire almost like a burden—before they arrived, he had only himself to worry about. Now, he felt like their happiness was his responsibility; his doing, or his failing. He had burned with a fierce, but ardent, jealousy at Skywarp's relationship with the little grounder. Not that he wanted Barricade for himself. He was an amusing plaything, yes. But he envied more than he ever dared admit the warm bond he had felt between them; envied Barricade's raw emotions. He did not think anyone had ever felt for him with such intensity.

The closest was Thundercracker.

No, the closest living was Thundercracker. Skyfire's spark chamber cover burned against his chassis, a painful reminder of what his last attempt at such devotion had cost. That, he said to himself, is no thing for you. You are not designed for it. You cannot manage it. Do not even dare to hope. Take…what you can.

He stretched himself alongside Thundercracker, laying the brush behind him. Thundercracker smiled down at him, optics wide and warm. Starscream kissed the broad mount of the shoulder, tenderly at first, barely brushing his lip plates over it, watching his ex-vents make small clouds of steam against the sleek blue plating. Then, a little more intently, his one hand sliding tentatively over the broad chest, fingers skittering toward the cockpit, mouth plucking at the edges of the armor plate, glossa flicking little touches across the plates, into the wiring. Thundercracker's breath hitched.

Starscream's capacitor picked up at Thundercracker's response. At the thought that he pleased his Trinemate send spirals of pleasure through his lines. Someone, he thought, greedily, he could make happy. "I desire you," he breathed. Honest and raw and pure.

Thundercracker's arms helped pull himself across the broad chassis, lifting his face to meet Starscream's, their mouths moving in an unforgotten dance. The kiss was gentle at first, probing each other out along familiar lines of arousal, then growing more intense, Thundercracker's hands pulling at Starscream's body, along the back verniers, the flares at the back of his helm, holding his Trinemate's mouth against his, a small growl answering a whine in Starscream's throat.

"You want me," Thundercracker said. Not a question, but…almost as if he were afraid to make it a question.

"Yes," Starscream said, letting his mouth brush Thundercracker's cheek. "I desire you."

Thundercracker bridled a bit at the wording, for some reason Starscream could not understand. He felt his blue Trinemate's hands harsh along his back. "Your desire is not that special," Thundercracker hissed. "Tell me, Starscream," he gripped his Trinemate's helm with one hand, the other digging into the tender interior of one of Starscream's thrusters, "how have you been spending your desire in my absence?"

"Skywarp," Starscream murmured. "He has been most entertaining." It was not a lie.

Thundercracker's hands softened against him. "Mmmm," he purred. "And before that?" He slicked his hands down Starscream's chassis, trailing his long talon points under the skirting armor, feeling into the ball joints of Starscream's hips. Starscream hissed, half in pleasure, arching up off of Thundercracker's chassis. "Have you been with grounders?"

No point lying. Thundercracker's talons dug in harder for Starscream's delay. "Yes." He could not lie. Not to his Trine. To anyone else, though…. And perhaps he could blunt Thundercracker's edges against himself. "Thundercracker, it is not an egregious act to interface with grounders."

"Aerials should be with aerials; Seekers with other Seekers."

"I am not _with_ them, Thundercracker," Starscream said, reasonably, aware that he was skirting on the edge of betraying Skywarp. "Interfacing is not the same as sparkbonding. We merely…pass the time pleasantly. Plus," he added, "it is good for building alliances." He cringed, aware that he was, indeed, tacitly betraying Skywarp. Perhaps the two had sparkbonded. And he had just cut a distance between them. It tasted like betrayal.

"We do not need to ally with them: they need to court our assistance," Thundercracker said. His mouth was hard.

"We need to cooperate," Starscream said, reasonably. "There is no reason it must be unpleasant in all circumstances." Soundwave was unpleasant. But the others? Starscream saw no reason not to burn every bridge. Thundercracker simply didn't know. He had held himself—always—aloof from any others but fliers.

"You can do so much better," Thundercracker murmured. He began moving his hands along Starscream's frame once more, sliding one leg between Starscream's thighs. Starscream felt himself melt against Thundercracker, his arms wanting nothing more than to touch his Trinemate. Thundercracker braced Starscream against his torso, rolling to one side. Equals. Not one on top, one on the bottom. Equals. Starscream's hands wrapped eagerly around Thundercracker's body, his mouth seeking out the blue jet's throat cables. Thundercracker writhed against him.

They lay like this for a long time, two long parted lovers re-exploring each other's bodies, the faint streams of memories rippling, eddying with hints and echoes of the other's desires. How well they remembered each other was an amazement to Starscream, who had known so many others. How eagerly he responded was less of a surprise. He loved Thundercracker as he loved Skywarp, with an intensity he could not explain, and that, sometimes, frightened him. To lose either of them would be to lose Skyfire all over again. He could not bear it.

The very thought, drifting across the back of his processor like hidden code, of Skyfire's loss burned at his core, pulling a dry sob from him, forcing his optics closed, shutting out the world. Shutting him in with his memories. Still. After all this time. He clutched at Thundercracker desperately, half wanting to open his optics and see Skyfire, dreading the terrible agony of reality.

"Starscream," Thundercracker said, gently, his touch shifting from desire to comfort. "Do not do this to yourself. To us."

"I am fine," Starscream said, his voice sounding thin and distant to his own audio.

"You're going away," Thundercracker murmured, "Don't. Please." He pushed up to one elbow, running a consoling arm over Starscream's body, his optics concerned, their red glare purpling his cheeks.

"I am fine," Starscream repeated.

"You are not." Thundercracker shook his head, drawing one of Starscream's own forearms in front of his optics. He twisted the arm so that the incised designs glittered in the low light. "This?"

"It was a necessary reminder."

"You do not need any more reminders, Starscream." He tapped Starscream's chassis, above the cockpit, meaningfully.

"I needed to remind myself who I was." Not of my loss, he thought, but of my nobility. Of my own strength. My ability to endure. If only he could explain it correctly, he knew that Thundercracker would approve.

Thundercracker traced one talon along a glyph, the metal tip drawing a long wake in the liquid metal nanites that filled the deep incisions. "You did these yourself."

"Yes."

"I want to." He looked up, asking for permission. Starscream's capacitor trilled in response. Thundercracker wanted…something, anything from him. Wanted something he could give. Starscream knew he let Thundercracker down in…oh…so many ways.

"Yes," Starscream said. "I have some of the dermal nanites left over." Starscream pushed himself off the berth, the discarded brush clattering to the floor. He stooped to pick it up. Skywarp was tolerant of messes, but Starscream was not. His thoughts drifted to Barricade's cramped little recharge cube and its untidiness. Was that where they were now? Were they co-recharging? Was Skywarp himself happy again? He had looked…disturbed on arrival. If anyone could break through that wall, it would be Barricade.

Right now, he had his own desire to look after.

He brought the sealed jar of nanites back. They swirled, dark silver and turgid, in the light. "You must," he instructed, "apply them to a fresh incision, before the sensor nodes have time to reroute." Thundercracker nodded. He probably already knew that, but didn't get short tempered at the reminder.

"Where?" Thundercracker asked.

Starscream lay the nanite jar on the berth and turned slowly, his arms outstretched. "Where would you like?"

Thundercracker leaned forward, tapping his Trinemate on the back of his right thigh. "Here."

Starscream nodded, laying awkwardly on the berth, his cockpit almost like a fulcrum raising his upper body off the surface. He looked over his shoulder, craning over his folded wing plates to see Thundercracker.

Thundercracker studied the site, stroking his fingers along the cool metal. Starscream shivered. It was an intimate touch, in an area that did not often get touched, save for loading bots installing bomb racks. Thundercracker's fingers traced over the area. Starscream strained his senses, trying to figure out what Thundercracker was preparing to write. He felt no anxiety that it would not be something suitable. Were it Skywarp, he'd fear for something like an arrow pointing at his aft and some crude joke. Thundercracker was always above that, in his stiff, distant way. Still, part of Starscream ached to know what would be written on him.

And the feathery touches were sending tendrils of silken sensation across his sensornet. He felt his interface systems cycle on, his spike signal readiness. No, Starscream told it. This is not that.

"Ready?" Thundercracker asked.

"Yes." Acquiescence: Starscream's greatest power. It was so rare that he was asked.

He bit down on a hiss as Thundercracker drove his talon into the armor plate, dragging it slowly down. Metal squealed. Starscream could feel a curl of it spiralling out of his dermal plating, the raw red-hot burn of the newly exposed metal striking air for the first time. His sensor cilia shivered in a frenzy of pain blasting down at them from the metal.

Starscream felt burning, red then white then almost a sense of grey coldness, as if all of his nodes had flipped a circuit breaker. He felt the pain on him, radiating from his metal skin, acutely aware of his surface, his skin, pulled from his depths to the most minute of foci on his dermal plating. His entire awareness cut to that small area, feeling with fine distinction the line Thundercracker had already carved out of him, the razor point of his Trinemate's talon, on him and IN him simultaneously; the trembling anticipation of the sensor cilia waiting for the next cut, the next turn.

Most blessedly, he could not feel himself. He was externality. Pure surface: a thing without depth , without darkness. A thing without time, existing NOW only now, not in the past's shadows, not in the haunted future. Simply now. Simply sense. Simply pain.

He cried out in a weeping kind of ecstasy.

Thundercracker poured the nanites along the gash, and the blaze of pain from their intrusion was so intense it was without color, without heat, as if beyond the senses, transcendent. Starscream felt his overload systems trip, the pain rushing across his net, pushing a brutal pleasure through him.

He shuddered, wracked with his own overload, the berth reflecting back to him the sudden heat from his frame.

Thundercracker swabbed the armor panel with a cleansing rag gently, so gently that it, somehow, felt like agony. The plating was raw, throbbing at the insult of the injury. Starscream rolled over, gingerly.

"What did you write?" he asked, arching his spine around to see. His thrusters got in the way.

Thundercracker grinned. "I thought you'd like it. 'Honor through suffering'."

He knows me, Starscream said. We are a Trine and this is why. He knows. And he accepts. In his way. He would accept Skywarp and Barricade in time. Starscream would soften Thundercracker's rage, by taking it, accepting, allowing its damage, himself. Where it would do no—lasting—harm. He would do that much for them, for Skywarp was also his Trinemate. And the black jet's happiness was a hot longing in Starscream. The Trine was a Trine, a sacred unity. Theirs was unbalanced—a four-legged chair teetering only on three. But if they clung tightly enough to each other, if they held close, they were strong.

In the meantime, Starscream's interface systems were still half charged—his previous release had not been physical. He pulled the blue mech down on top of him: hands, mouth, entire body reaching and grasping greedily at Thundercracker. Thundercracker laughed.


	28. Spark

A/N Sort of an experiment in story telling. Both halves happen simultaneously...

Skywarp jolted awake from a bad memory purge, his optics onlining so abruptly it hurt. No. He was not there. He wasn't…doing that. He was here. Safe. And Barricade was…. Skywarp looked down, rocking his weight off the smaller mech. Barricade was also here, safe. In full recharge, his face perfectly content, his limbs pressed out flat from having been under Skywarp's weight.

Skywarp stared at his face—the little mech's expression was peaceful. Serene. Engrossed in the experience of lying with Skywarp again. The smaller mech had shamelessly hauled Skywarp on top of him: which terrified the jet for a moment, a bright acid fear that he wouldn't control himself. And the powerful urgency in Barricade's talons as he'd pulled Skywarp on top of him was surprising. But the EM fields synched quicker than he'd thought possible, and the warm fuzz had overspread his sensor net. Before he thought possible, he had plunged into recharge, some of the flight grease still caked on his armor. He must have been exhausted.

Well then, why couldn't he recharge? What had pulled him out of his purge? He'd had purges before, but had always managed to roll right over back into recharge—into another nightmare more often than not. But now…he felt as if recharge eluded him. He wasn't upset—the purge's last tendrils drifted away from his processor, dissipating like vapor. He wasn't haunted—well, not moreso than usual—by the rapturous brutality of his dreams. It was simply that recharge eluded him.

He risked a light touch of Barricade's hand, and felt the talons grip around his fingers. Even in his sleep, Barricade trusted him, clung to him. Skywarp wished he dared move enough to kiss the smaller mech. Not…that way, really. Just enough to make him real to his mouth. To get the scent of him, hear the soft hum of his recharging batteries.

He'd promised to spike Barricade over the comm line. Before he…before he knew. Now Skywarp didn't know what to do. Did Barricade still want him to? Did Barricade still want him…at all? They'd lain together for cycles, but…there was no mention of interfacing. It made perfect sense, of course. What do you do when you find out the mech you've fallen…in love with (it still felt like a pull on his spark to even think the phrase) raped his own Trine mate? He probably did not want to be touched by those violating instruments. How Barricade was not disgusted to let Skywarp stay near him, much less touch him at all (these hands were hardly free from stain), was an amazement to the black jet. So…if Barricade didn't want to interface, that was less than it should have been. Skywarp would endure without. So long as he could have this much.

He contemplated the smaller mech's face. Barricade would never be considered attractive. Skywarp knew that, and wouldn't pretend otherwise. His facial structure was too elongated, his mouth a strange rictus of electrumed teeth. All he could see were those earnest optics, all four of them, determined and insistent, focusing down on him like a laserbeam, refusing to let him go. He could feel where the little mech's hands had clutched at him, digging in. He'd never seen anything from the small mech like that fierce light before. He'd always been so passive.

No…he had. When he had hurt the mech in his own bad recharge and the mech had been trying to push him away. He'd seen the same expression, a hard determination overlaying a gaping vulnerability, a need even Barricade was afraid to own. The mouth had been twisted, a contortion of unhappiness, then, but the optics had had the same intensity.

Now the face was content. Happy. Almost the angelic peace he saw in Thundercracker's sleeping face.

He didn't want to think about Thundercracker right now: where he was, what he was doing. He hoped Starscream was all right. No. That was foolishness. Starscream would be fine. Thundercracker knew how far to go. And Starscream had learned his own ways of channeling Thundercracker's desires. He was smarter than Skywarp in that way.

He cycled his vocalizer down to nearly inaudible. He told himself it was because he was afraid of waking the mech. A lie. And he knew it. But sometimes it was safer to lie knowingly than to risk the truth, even to yourself. "I love you," he said. The words tasted rich in his vocalizer, trembling like stars.

It wasn't enough. When was anything ever enough for Skywarp—greedy, grasping thing that he was. Whatever he wanted, he took. Even at the beginning-Barricade hadn't had much choice, had he? Not that he'd tried all that hard to fight it, really. Skywarp's interface system hummed on at the memory: the little grounder torn between fear and desire, more than half-certain that they would hurt him at some point. That it would all go wrong. Maybe…and this was disquieting…maybe it was that very mix of fear and desire that first time that had been so attractive to Skywarp. Why this one otherwise unremarkable grounder drew him in. That fine balance between fear and desire, and Barricade's willingness to show that. To be open to that both to himself and to Skywarp.

He pushed himself along that same line, feeling it like a razor's edge underneath him. "I love you," he repeated, a little louder. Barricade moved, murmuring softly, turning his face toward Skywarp. Skywarp's spark ached. He thought of the spark chamber cover—he still hadn't had a chance to get it permanently affixed. And then…he thought…he dared to think….

He shifted carefully, agonizingly slowly, down the berth. He wouldn't do anything. Just…wanted to see what it would feel like. Imagine it better.

Work up his courage.

He winced at the sound of his chest plates retracting, gummed with the cold-baked grease, his optics keen on Barricade's sleeping face. What would he do if Barricade woke up now? Nothing. He could pretend to be asleep, hope the lowlight didn't reveal what he was doing. He was only going to open the armor. He wasn't going to…not really. The EM field enveloped them with a common warmth. He pushed his awareness along it, as if he could smooth any disruption in the synchrony of their fields, and keep Barricade safely in deep recharge.

He moved his hand, slowly, carefully, optics wary for any sign of movement from the smaller mech, as his fingers reached for the spark chamber cover magnetically attached over his own. He tensed, prying the cover off with one careful talon inserted between the cover and his own. He was surprised at the sudden sensation as he lifted the cover away. Must be the magnetic field, he told himself. Or residual heat flush. Oh. His optics drifted closed, their receptors blurring the image of Barricade lying there, slackly humming with recharge, somehow into Barricade lying, eager, desiring, wanting, yearning, aching for him, his own spark chamber exposed, awaiting… tentatively—that perfect intoxicating mix of fear and desire. Skywarp's hand started shaking with anticipation. Did he have the nerve, or was he too caught on the fear side of that exquisite line?

He closed his optics, pushing his lip plates together in concentration as he issued the command to open the spark chamber, half disbelieving his own audacity. Was this courage? Or another kind of cowardice?

The purple flickering light dazzled across the silver parts of Barricade's armor—his grille, his facial finials, the joints in his arms, his talons seemed to dance with movement. Skywarp tried to block the light from the mech's shuttered optics, bending lower, closer, feeling the spark's energy reaching out, over and through Barricade's prone body.

Barricade squirmed, his chassis arching up toward the open spark chamber. Skywarp froze. Oh frag. What if…no. Too late for that now. If Barricade onlined now, he had no excuse. The potential mortification of that thought sent a bracing shiver through his net. Dangerous in ways he couldn't describe.

He bent closer, letting the spark's energy unspool around Barricade. He could feel it reaching for the smaller mech's own spark, as if calling to it through the thick metal of the Barricade's own chamber. He could swear he felt it respond, surge up eagerly against his. He felt the purpled energy probing through Barricade, body and field, felt the energy bounce against the firewalls, doubling back as shimmering echoes of light and sensation. He pushed along the spark's energy, even now controlling it, as he had learned. He could make…anything a violation. He had learned this much from Thundercracker. From himself. He could push further. He could batter those firewalls. Even this way, he could take Barricade.

Would Barricade want him to?

No. NO. He could not. Stop it, Skywarp, he snapped at himself. You've ruined interfacing for the little mech. He'll never want to touch you again—not that way. Do not ruin this. Do not destroy the potential of this before it even starts. He suppressed—with effort—the worry that if Barricade did not want to interface with him, he'd scarcely invite this deeper intimacy.

He released his control of the spark energy, letting it bathe, almost as an apology for his dark thoughts, the smaller mech in gentle washes of light and energy and an emotion he could not even name. There was no word that encompassed it. He hung for a moment over the smaller mech, imagining what it would feel like to have this reciprocated, have Barricade's spark energy wash over, wash through him. Would it wash him clean? What color was Barricade's spark? Gold, Skywarp thought. Shimmering gold. As if wishing it to be true.

Wishful, stupid fantasy. The voice in his processor sounded like Thundercracker so much. So much. What if you did, you fragged up glitch? What would happen, do you think? Would Barricade like what he found there, felt there, if you were ever so slaggin' STUPID as to spark with him? He'd KNOW. He'd know and then you'd have no recourse. You'd be bare and ugly in front of him. And he would either (if he had any sense) tear himself away (and could you lose him? Could you bear knowing that someone out there _knew_ and despised you?) or throw himself, pathetically, tragically, heroically, into the maelstrom as though he could fix anything. As though he could help.

Nothing helped. Skywarp knew this. Nothing did anything more than distract him from himself. The pranks. The jokes. The insubordination. They were all distractions, an outward sign of his inner brokenness. A different take on what Starscream had done with his tattoos—making an outward sign (if anyone could read it) of his inner pain.

Was he so foolish (Thundercracker's voice, again), was he so foolish as to think that love (his cortex sneered the word) would save him? Would do anything other than, perhaps, provide a momentary branch, breaking his inevitable fall…but only for so long. Until it too broke and he would plunge—with it—to the unrecoverable darkness. The thought disquieted him, but it was enough to call him back to himself. He'd pushed his luck so far, pushed his emotions…too far. He leaned back, snapping his covers shut, and dropping back on top of Barricade, not caring if he woke him. Trying not to care. Trying to pull his way back along that line. Coward's retreat ? Tactical redeployment. It stirred a dull sadness in him that he could only think in these warrior metaphors.

He shuttered his optics, powering down his optical sensors, pulling Barricade against him, acutely aware of the hard boundaries between them. Hating their necessity. Hating that he was the one needing that boundary to keep them both safe.

[********]

Barricade stirred in his recharge. He felt like he was floating on a soft cushion of air—like being in a repair cradle that was warm and gentle, without the fear and pain he normally felt on a repair cradle. He recognized the source—his combined EM with Skywarp, back again. Back again and recharging with him.

His memory purges spun out shattered visions of what Skywarp had told him: Skywarp throwing Starscream to the ground, taking him, the bronze jet whimpering, almost sobbing—the way he had almost wept with Onslaught when Barricade had walked in; begging for help, mercy, end. Skywarp's talons used as weapons—not as the gentle fingers Barricade knew them as—smaller mechs flailing helplessly against him. He must be terrifying in combat, Barricade's subconscious thought, and fed him images of the jet raining terror onto grounders. His spark surged with a mixture of pride and terror at the images—that his Skywarp could be so fearsome with them and yet so…tame with him.

He thought he heard a voice, and not a voice. He couldn't make out the words. He turned his audio, in his recharge. Nothing. He lapsed back into the images flickering in his memory cache: Skywarp cold and hard in the hangar, the way he had flatly denied Thundercracker's wish to co-recharge. The way he had glared down at Soundwave after the Tribunal—he had been cold from space then, too, and colder yet in demeanor. Then, Barricade had been too caught up in his own shame to focus, but they were falling into place, like pieces of a mosaic.

There was, there had always been, a coldness, a hardness in Skywarp that he could not touch, could not soften or warm, that seemed to weigh on Skywarp's spark like a stone.

Was he frightened? These were no secrets, not really. He had seen Skywarp's coldness, the potential for what…what he said he did (his cortex flashed him another image, blurred, cooked up, Skywarp biting a neck cable of a nameless, faceless mech, who squealed and sobbed, the energon hot and scintillant on Skywarp's face). Was he afraid? Should he be?

His sensornet soothed suddenly, as though a warm radiation like solarlight was flooding over him. He sighed, softly, squirming under this gentle wash as though moving to rinse the bad images, the disturbing thoughts, away from him. Instead…his cortex drifted to that one fantasy, inviting, tempting, opening his spark chamber to Skywarp, letting the jet see and feel and know everything. And he would see and feel and know. He could almost feel it, his spark seemed restless, trapped within its chamber, wanting to reach out of his chassis, embrace Skywarp's own energy, mix with it…become part of it and it part of him. He felt his back struts lift off the berth, as if towards an imaginary Skywarp bending over him.

He…had no idea how to do that. No one had ever wanted, and…even his worst violators hadn't gone that far with him. Most likely, he thought, because that would be too far—they would feel him, become unified with him, if even for the space of a spark overload. Distasteful enough to drive away the threat: to feel what he felt, to be mixed, joined, boundaries blurred with him. Their contempt had, ironically, saved him that.

He wanted to but he had no idea and the thought of looking like a fool (Had Skywarp done it? Would he know what to do? How much would he laugh if he knew Barricade had never?) for his lack of knowledge almost outweighed his timidity at even entertaining the thought. As if he'd ever build up enough courage and worthiness to ask…! But still, the desire ached in him, and he fed it the only way he knew how: with clumsy half-romanticized imaginings.

Skywarp would bend over him, murmuring over and over that he loved him, and all Barricade would have to do (in his fantasy, Skywarp was entranced by his innocence, and took pains to make sure this time, his first time, THEIR first time, would go well) would be to lie there and do what Skywarp directed, let Skywarp take lead. And they'd be equal, but not equal—Barricade still giving in, taking whatever direction Skywarp wanted. He could feel another aching surge in the spark chamber, tinged with longing. And…and their sparks would combine, the colors swirling and mixing and blending (what color was Skywarp's? He wished he knew. It felt…incomplete that he didn't know. He'd had a dream where it was purple and rich and lush…but that had been a dream) and their energy would blend and they'd be carried off on a wave of electrical ecstasy where they would be one. Unity. Thinking each other's thoughts. Feeling each other's feelings. Knowing each other's basic core programming.

He would know and he would show Skywarp how little it mattered to him. Skywarp was Skywarp. There was no other word to contain all of him. And Barricade would not reject, refused to reject, any part. Everything he adored about the jet had come along with everything that scared Skywarp about himself. All of those bad things created Skywarp—how could he turn against them?

He wanted Skywarp to feel that. Barricade had no confidence in anything but this: that this powerful emotion roiling in his systems, which Starscream had told him was pure and beautiful, was strong enough to overwhelm, drive aside, any obstacle. And earlier he had felt…a glimmering of a something. That …Skywarp needed it from him, that this feeling could do something wonderful, redeem Barricade from his uselessness, his unworthiness. Could, maybe, help.

If only he knew how.

He felt the sudden weight drop on him, long arms squeeze around him, as, falling deeper into recharge, Skywarp resettled. Barricade took a white-burning satisfaction, almost—almost a pride—that in his recharge, unconscious, unguarded, Skywarp took comfort in him.


	29. Summoned

A/N Back from Botcon: Still trying to recover. Right, a little dubcon/domsub here.

Barricade lay half in recharge for a long time, simply reveling in the warm glow and nearness of Skywarp's body. He could not describe how much he'd missed even the little details: the soft hum of Skywarp's engine, the smell of warmed joint lubricant, the feel of the weight on top of him. They all felt like love to him now.

And…more. His interface systems had cycled on during his recharge, no doubt also aware of their own associations with Skywarp's nearness. He'd awakened from a memory purge that left him almost breathless: Skywarp pinning him down growling with lust as he rode Barricade's spike. Unsurprisingly, Barricade woke up with an aching, slicked spike, and those memories lapping at his sensor net. He was a little ashamed to say that he missed that. Skywarp was not ONLY that, of course, but he did miss that part as well—the almost tender violence of their intimacy. The way Skywarp would look at him—fiercely possessive, almost mad with desire—no one had ever looked at Barricade that way. And the violence: he knew it was there, but compared to Skywarp's careful gentle consideration? He could not deny either truth: the brutal assaulter nor the considerate lover. Both were Skywarp, and he loved Skywarp.

And he wanted him. Wanted to show him with his body what he didn't trust words to convey.

He wriggled upward, the jet's heavy frame sliding over his, until he could reach Skywarp's face, pulling the jet down into a gentle one-sided kiss. He pressed his mouth against Skywarp's for a long moment, simply feeling as much as he could from his mouth plates, letting memories of other kisses—tender and fierce—wash over him. No one had ever kissed him like Skywarp had. He parted his mouth, his glossa tentative against Skywarp's mouth, tasting the texture of the satiny armor. Even Skywarp's face was heavily armored, unlike Barricade's lighter plating. Yet Skywarp could move even these heavy defensive plates so gently they felt like feather-touches.

Barricade ached with emotion, the most beautiful pain he could imagine. His talons reached up, stroking Skywarp's helm, tracing delicate lines along the heavy collar armor, as his mouth worked against Skywarp's mouth, coaxing it into a kiss.

"Muh!" Skywarp jolted awake, the red optics unshuttering and flickering to life. He blinked, blearily, at Barricade looking up at him, hands still extended toward his sensitive audio. He bent down into an actual kiss, his mouth probing at Barricade's, arms coming up to stroke the smaller mech's sides. His glossa danced with Barricade's. Barricade could hear the soft growl in the jet's throat. His systems trilled in response.

"Bad way to wake me up, little spike," Skywarp teased, his voice husky.

"Is it?" Barricade grinned. His spark leapt with a kind of joy. This was his Skywarp again. Intense, but playful. "Can think of other ways to wake you up." He wiggled his foot, which was just about the level of Skywarp's interface hatch. Skywarp smiled back.

"You are going to start all sorts of trouble for yourself that way," Skywarp admonished. He reached over, casually, and pushed one of Barricade's wrists against the berth. The memories from that gesture flooded over both of them—Skywarp's smile took on a lewder edge as Barricade arched his spinal cables in response. "You really like that," he said, wonderingly.

"Yes," Barricade said, simply. He liked anything Skywarp did. Skywarp's optics drooped, almost as if he was overcome by some emotion Barricade could not name.

Skywarp's grin returned. "Your mistake, little spike, is that you have awakened a sleeping Seeker. The penalty is very, very high."

"Is it?"

"Mmmm, yes." Skywarp dipped his head down, flicking his glossa at the air intake in the center of Barricade's chest. That spot that…so long ago, it seemed, he had told Barricade was his favorite. Barricade squirmed, victim of his own sensor net as the touch sent flickers of liquid heat and pleasure through him. He couldn't keep the giddy smile from his face. Oh Primus, how he'd missed this. What he'd had, what he'd done with Starscream was pure physical need. This was…so much more than that.

Skywarp looked up, his optics strangely shadowed. "You trust me to…?"

His hesitation stabbed at Barricade's spark. "Yes," he breathed.

"Shouldn't be this trusting," Skywarp said, softly, almost sorrowfully, as he slithered down Barricade's body, the bulge of his cockpit sliding between Barricade's thighs, his free hand teasing at Barricade's headlamp, before he reached over with one of his thumbs and snapped open Barricade's interface panel. He paused over the covers, hot ex-vents hitting the newly exposed metal. Barricade whimpered, longing for contact, twisting his hips upward. His spike ached in its housing—he could already imagine the warm inviting pressure of Skywarp's mouth, or his valve. Ohhhhhh, how he wanted that. How he wanted to feel it, but more, he wanted to know that Skywarp enjoyed it. The black jet had been through so much—more than Barricade could even imagine—and if his body brought him any solace, Barricade was more than willing to give it.

Skywarp teased the spike cover, laughing as it clicked eagerly open. "You DO want me," Skywarp teased, the vibrations from his laughter and his baritone voice sending electric shimmers across Barricade's net. He licked his glossa up the length of Barricade's spike, teasing the nodes as he went. Barricade's hips lifted, trying to prolong contact.

Skywarp's entire frame suddenly went rigid, the smile dying from his mouth. Barricade felt his supraorbital crest furrow in worry. What? A bad memory?

Skywarp swore, in a deep, savage tone Barricade had never heard before. He pushed away. "Have to go," he muttered.

Part of Barricade—the part that his spike was attached to—howled in outrage. He wanted Skywarp so badly: hadn't even had the chance to give anything back to Skywarp. He suddenly felt abashed at his own greed—that he had just lay there, and not tried anything to please Skywarp. And you say you love him, he berated himself. Selfish.

Another part was worried—Skywarp did not seem pleased. His entire body language was anxious. "You—you okay?"

Skywarp pushed himself to the edge of the berth. He sat, for a long moment, his broad back to Barricade. Barricade softly snapped his interface hatch closed, and rose up on his knees, draping his arms around Skywarp's shoulders, his chassis wedged between the jet's engines. He pressed his cheek against Skywarp's. Skywarp hadn't answered his question, but he didn't want to ask again. He just wanted to take the tension away. Skywarp shifted, brushing his mouth against one of Barricade's forearms. "Have to go," he repeated, numbly.

"Right now?" Barricade tried not to sound pettish.

"Trine." As if that explained everything. It didn't: it filled Barricade with an icy dread.

"No. Don't go." He hated saying no. Not to Skywarp.

"I have to, little spike." Skywarp's voice was thin, unhappy. Shut up, Barricade snapped at himself. Don't make it any harder. He released his arms from around Skywarp's neck.

"Okay," he said, softly. Submitting.

Skywarp murmured something comforting, and left. Barricade flopped back onto the suddenly gapingly-empty berth, feeling a chill as if Skywarp had taken all the heat from the room with him. He will be fine, he told himself. And he will come back to you. He came across how many parsecs of space back to you? Do not lose faith now. Do not.

He thought of following Skywarp, barging in. Thundercracker's haughty dismissal of him in the hangar hadn't stung him before, but it did now. He mattered. And he wanted to make sure Thundercracker knew this. And he would step in for Skywarp. Help him.

He moved to the edge of the berth, his foot brushing something that clattered on the floor. What? He sat up to retrieve it, his fingers closing around the shape as though he ought to know what it was. He knew—with a shock as hard as a stone—what it was.

His spark chamber cover. Skywarp had taken it off. Barricade closed his eyes in misery, curling into a ball around the discarded metal and his heartbreak.

[***]

Starscream pushed him back against the door as soon as Skywarp stepped through, planting fierce, hot kisses, almost bites, on his armor, long hands skittering over his armor, seeking out gaps in the plating, tracing along the overlapping ridges. His own interface systems, primed from Barricade, flooded him with sensation to the point he could not think clearly. All he could do was keep himself upright, a feral whimper in his vocalizer. Thundercracker sat on the berth, leaning forward, keenly interested. Yes, of course. Starscream's sudden—if mild—aggression was doubtless Thundercracker's idea.

Starscream slid down Skywarp's frame, his mouth a spot of heat and lust as it travelled over his chassis, licking around the mounting of Skywarp's cockpit like a little tongue of fire. Starscream's hands explored the interstices in Skywarp's leg armor. Tickling along the knee joint, down to the jutting piston of his heel, Starscream's mouth tickling Skywarp's interface hatch, begging, gently, teasingly, for admittance.

Skywarp wasn't sure he could reciprocate in kind. More: he knew that Thundercracker didn't want him to. Nor…probably…Starscream. "No," he croaked. The only warning he could give, and halfhearted at that. Starscream flicked the hatch open with a clever twist of his glossa and lower lip. Skywarp shoved at Starscream's shoulders, sprawling him on the floor. He felt Thundercracker's optics on him as he dropped to his knees between Starscream's legs. His desire for Barricade had been pure and clean and honest. This…he could feel the tendrils of darkness, intangible as smoke but stronger than tungsten, rising up, taking him over.

Starscream's hand pulled his head down, another uncharacteristically forceful gesture , his mouth insistent on Skywarp's. Skywarp fell forward onto his forearms, pushing into the kiss. His spike surged against its cover. No, a thin voice protested in the back of his processor, even as he pushed his glossa into Starscream's mouth, as Starscream's fingers teased lightly at the rims of his thrusters. It was desire and lust and power and Skywarp was helpless before it.

Arms hauled him off Starscream—long and blue—and he felt a nip at one of the energon lines in his throat before Thundercracker murmured gently in his audio, "We belong together. The three of us." Between his legs, Starscream scrambled to pull his limbs underneath him, his optics glazed with passive desire. Wanting, and wanting to be wanted.

"Yes," Skywarp said, weakly. Thundercracker's hands ran down the front of his armor, crossing and squeezing at his hips, pulling him back against him.

"Starscream wants you to take him." A command and not a command—it was true. And Skywarp shivered as he knew that he wanted to take Starscream. Thundercracker laughed softly against him, releasing his grip on the black-armored hips as though giving him a signal. Permission.

Skywarp lunged at Starscream, one long hand wrapping around the folded wingpanel, flipping Starscream onto his belly against the berth. Starscream spun his torso, lashing a backhand at Skywarp's face. The black jet let it hit, let it cut into him (it was pain and rightful and he deserved it yet at the same time it fed the very thing that should have been cowed), before snatching the arm out of the air, twisting the wrist underhand until Starscream whimpered. "You know," he heard his voice say, like a distant muddy echo, "that never works."

Starscream knew, just as he knew that lashing with one of his barbed heels against Skywarp's thigh wouldn't achieve anything more than inflaming Skywarp further. "You could never take me," he said, his voice ugly. "You know that. All this bravado of your abilities and," he slammed his Trine mate hard against the berth, crushing one knee into the back bend of one of Starscream's own legs, "you can't even save yourself from this."

He heard the familiar hitch in Starscream's vents that sent a blaze of pure black lust through him. He pushed further, physically and verbally, sidling his hips against Starscream's, his open interface panel bumping against Starscream's closed one, leaning over, his cockpit pressing between the turbines. "You've always been weak, Starscream. Unless," he dared to strike at the heart of the truth in his brutal lust, "you want this. Unless you want to be forced. Pathetic." Skyfire's name was trembling on his lips, but he had…that much decency. That much control. Barely.

A sob, and Skywarp reared back, tearing open Starscream's hatch. The valve cover released itself instantly, in an abject admission of submission. Skywarp drove his spike into the valve, snarling, shaking with desire for release and rage. He could feel Thundercracker's gaze on him, goading, approving; his thoughts drifted to Barricade. What would Barricade think, seeing him now? He'd been aroused, before, a little bit. Enough to try to play with Onslaught. But…knowing now? He'd know it wasn't play anymore. Wasn't the same, was a raw gaping open wound into the darkness of Skywarp's psyche.

He hauled Starscream's shoulders off the berth, wrapping his arms around him from behind as he reared up on his knees, driving his spike with a furious rhythm into Starscream's valve. Skywarp's mouth found a gap in Starscream's collar armor, scraping against the rim, growling as his bronze Trine mate twitched in pain. His talons raked across Starscream's chassis, screeling metal on metal. The bronze jet quivered, whimpering, but not begging. Tacitly asking for more.

Skywarp felt the energon line tear beneath his denta, tasting Starscream's pain and fear along with the sweet tingle of the energon itself. He growled with pleasure, clutching his arms more tightly around Starscream's chassis.

Starscream's hands folded over his forearms, the head tilting back, exposing more of his throat, leaning more into submission, leaning, draping, trusting, yielding utterly to Skywarp. He had a sudden flash of fantasy—Barricade, whimpering in his arms instead of Starscream; Barricade's back kibble against his chassis; his energon lines between Skywarp's teeth; his valve juddering under the assault of Skywarp's spike.

A tendril of despair seized at Skywarp. "I'm sorry!" he managed to push out, between violent thrusts. "Forgive me. Can't help…." His body shuddered, an overload tearing across his systems, leaving his thigh servos trembling, his talons dug into Starscream's armor, his face ground hard against Starscream's bared throat.

"Always," Starscream murmured, in a mild delirium, rocking back into Skywarp's embrace. "Always, always."


	30. Betray

A/Nwhoops, fandom drama keeping me from my appointed rounds. Sorry! Here, have some plot:

Skywarp jerked awake, in a tangle of limbs. He and Starscream and Thundercracker had gotten more or less woven together. Starscream's face was nuzzled against his neck, and someone's hand—he couldn't quite figure whose—curled over one of his hips. It was warm and cozy and full of megacycles of memories—innocent and not so. For a long moment, the drowse of the memories tempted him, until he remembered Barricade. Who was probably curled, alone and miserable, on his cramped little berth. While Skywarp had interfaced…how many times?

His optics stung at the thought. Barricade waiting for him, innocent, chaste, and he'd…he couldn't even finish the thought. He just knew he had to get back. Even for a few cycles.

He pushed himself slowly upright, delicately moving limbs out of his way. He looked down at his spattered frame with dismay, aware suddenly of the reek of friction-heated transfluid. He was…disgusting. How could he explain this?

"Where are you going?" Thundercracker's voice was soft, trying not to wake Starscream.

"I have to go back."

"Go back where? We are your Trine."

Time to get it out. Stop being a coward. You will face Barricade coated in your Trine's fluids. You will stand up to his scorn and judgment. Compared to that, Thundercracker was…nothing. "Barricade. I corecharge with him."

"You corecharge with a grounder?"

"Yes." Blatant challenge in his voice.

"You interface with him."

Starscream interrupted, "I interface with grounders as well." He sat up and planted a drowsy soothing kiss on Thundercracker's shoulder. Thundercracker leaned over, and kissed Starscream's forehead gently.

"Yes," Skywarp said. "I interface with a grounder." He winced at the petulant tone of his voice.

Thundercracker shook his head. Judgment. Skywarp felt his lip curl. "Affecting your judgment," Thundercracker said.

"It does not!" He winced. That didn't sound like his judgment was affected at all. Thundercracker didn't even have to say anything: simply quirk one supraorbital ridge. How could he say how he felt when Thundercracker was judging him just for his actions, not his emotions?

"You want to leave the comfort of your Trine to go recharge with a grounder."

"I have spent enough time with you. This is about me."

"This is about your unnatural attraction to grounders."

"Starscream interfaces with grounders as well."

Starscream nodded agreement, his mouth warm and eager on Thundercracker's back, fingers crawling over the thrusters.

"Starscream interfaces with anything." Beside him, Starscream stiffened, pausing in his caresses. Skywarp ached for him. He didn't understand Starscream, but…he knew that his Trinemate didn't deserve this kind of censure. Or if he did, then Skywarp deserved part of the blame for making him that way. He had certainly done his part to break Starscream of any modesty or shame. Or boundaries. He reached an apologetic hand to his bronze Trinemate. Starscream's talons curled around his. He tugged, pulling Starscream away from Thundercracker. Starscream's arms twined around his neck, clinging, needy. Starscream hated conflict among his Trinemates.

"Starscream is one of us," Skywarp said, wrapping his own arm protectively around the bronze jet. He realized suddenly, that he had given up on leaving. Barricade…. But Starscream's arms were needy against him. And…maybe Barricade was in deep recharge. And he didn't have words to explain anyway. And…this had to be settled. Excuses, in several different colors. He turned his face into Starscream's, accepting the eager kiss. Do not fight, he could practically hear Starscream say, with his mouth, with his body. And he didn't want to fight, either. Ever. But he'd given in so much. Given in to Thundercracker. Given in to his darkness. He would not give in here. He would take a stand.

And Barricade would understand. Wouldn't he?

"And yes," he said, defiantly, "I interface with Barricade. And he is a grounder." He teetered on the brink for the space of a breath, watching Thundercracker's face ripple through a handful of responses. Courage, he told himself. You can face combat and death without fear: You can speak to your Trine. He blurted, "And I am considering sparking with him." He felt Starscream's talons dig into him, but he couldn't tell if the gesture was warning or comforting or horrified. His own spark flared at putting the desire, finally, into words. Yes, it told him. This is right and good and pure. This is what you want. Hold strong.

Starscream swung in front of him, dropping into his lap, throwing himself, in his way, between them. He stroked worriedly at Thundercracker's cockpit. Thundercracker had gone rigid, his mouth quivering with suppressed emotion. "You," he pushed out, finally, "cannot be serious."

"Why not?"

"He is a grounder." As though that made it physically impossible or unspeakably obscene. "Aerials belong with aerials; Seekers with Seekers. Let him find his own kind."

"You," Skywarp said, his voice dangerous, "have no right. It was your little game, wasn't it, all that time ago? Your little…fetish to watch me force little groundframes."

"My fetish? You did not have to go along with it." Thundercracker was probably being as honest as he could be—he couldn't see that, just like right now, there was no way to NOT do precisely what Thundercracker wanted. He really thought they had choices. Free will. Skywarp shook his head, bitterly.

"You," he said, coldly, "at the very least did not try to stop me, then."

"You weren't trying to spark link with them!"

Skywarp felt a trembling across his thighs: Starscream, his optics wide-irised in fear. "Do not fight," the bronze jet whispered, desperately. "I cannot bear it."

"We aren't fighting, Starscream," Thundercracker murmured soothingly. "We are simply having a discussion."

Skywarp felt his talons bunch into fists. "Can't we once just call this what it is, Thundercracker? This is NOT a discussion. This is you trying to take command of the Trine."

"Someone needs to look out for our communal welfare." Thundercracker reached down, deliberately, returning Starscream's touches, turning the bronze jet's face to his. "Right, Starscream?"

Striking low, Skywarp thought. Reminding Starscream of his own failing in that regard. And, obliquely, reminding Skywarp of his own. "Communal welfare," he spat. "That's always been your excuse."

"Really." Thundercracker's optics slitted. "Did you want us to fall apart after Skyfire's death? It seems like you did. And now?" he tapped one talon on Starscream's cockpit. "Do you want others to violate our bond?" Starscream looked stricken, that stunned, terrified look Skywarp remembered all too well from their first days as a Trine.

Skywarp snorted. Another way to phrase Thundercracker's question, really, was, 'do you want others to know how dysfunctionally fragged we all are?'. "Nobody is violating anything. Unless you're afraid to let me spark with someone else. "

"I'm not afraid, Skywarp," Thundercracker said, reasonably. "But we all know that it could be…very disappointing for you." His optics were sympathetic. Sincere. Just…Skywarp didn't want sincere sympathy right now. Especially not from Thundercracker.

"That is my problem," Skywarp growled. Yes, there was a possibility—more like a probability, that he'd spark with Barricade and the little mech would recoil in horror. There was a difference between being told of Skywarp's deeds, and being forced to feel them, see them, and feel Skywarp's own brutal joy at his casual violence. But that was Barricade's decision to make: not Thundercracker's.

"There are no individual problems in a Trine," Thundercracker said. "We have had to learn this lesson how many times?" He tilted his head down to look at Starscream. "Right?"

Starscream nodded, numbly. Skywarp felt a boil of rage at how easily Thundercracker was manipulating Starscream. His choice: Pull back or not play at all. "Leave Starscream out of this." He'd always been accused of protecting Starscream. One more accusation wouldn't tilt the balance.

Thundercracker looked up at him, pointedly, as if he had suggested blasphemy. "We are a Trine."

"Quaterne," Starscream murmured. Skywarp bent down and scooped the bronze mech up between them. Oh he knew where this was going. Starscream was fading and it was all his fault. Or it would be.

"Hush," he murmured, wrapping his arms around the bronze jet. Starscream shifted uncomfortably.

"Quaterne," he repeated, softly. "We need each other too much for this."

"Yes," Skywarp said, "I know. We're not fighting, Starscream. Nothing will happen." He looked up at Thundercracker, and his optics narrowed. "You want me to be happy, don't you?" He hated himself for this tactic. It felt wrong and vicious, especially as Starscream nodded earnestly.

"But Skywarp is…confused," Thundercracker riposted. "He does not know what will make him truly happy. That is why he has a Trine." He sneered up at Skywarp. "He relies upon us, as we rely upon him."

"We can all be happy," Starscream murmured. Skywarp's spark ached at almost the same intensity that his rage burned him. Starscream…reduced to this. In combat, he was ruthless, efficient, fearless. When pushing an idea, he was devious but dogged. But the moment the Trine was threatened, he collapsed into this gibbering wreck. And Skywarp had no small part in having done this to him. Having reduced him to this so easily. Oh, Skywarp you played your part. And this is the payment. This is what you deserve.

He buried his face in Starscream's neck, the folded wing panels fluttering against him. "I'm sorry," he breathed, feeling his breath against the cool metal. He wasn't sure himself if he were apologizing for right now or for…everything. Starscream made a small comforted sound in his throat.

"I suggest," Thundercracker said, coolly, "that we put this decision to a Trine vote."

"What decision? There's no decision to be made here." Skywarp's forearms tightened around Starscream's chassis.

"Your spark bonding is a matter of direct concern to the Trine," Thundercracker's voice had taken on his patronizing tone. "We shall feel the effects."

"Starscream wouldn't mind." Starscream obediently shook his head. Skywarp looked up, triumphant.

"Starscream," Thundercracker said, soothingly, "Would you really like to share the grounder's spark?"

"Barricade is very sweet," Starscream offered, stopped when he saw the disapproving look on Thundercracker's face.

"We are allowed to spark bond outside of our Trine," Skywarp said pointedly. He knew this wasn't news to Thundercracker—he just wanted to make Thundercracker admit his real objection. The real reason they stayed close, couldn't let anyone in. He just wanted Thundercracker to admit…how dysfunctional they were. Let go of this illusion of love and bonding and unity that had kept them all prisoner. It wouldn't break the Trine bond—nothing could—but it would set them free of their pasts.

"A vote." Thundercracker returned to this. "Spark bonding with a non-aerial, or not?" He smirked. "I say not."

"I say this is a Trine and you don't dictate terms to me."

"I say this is a Trine and I have every right as a member to call a vote."

"Fine. I say yes." Skywarp's mouth pressed into a thin line. He was so enraged at Thundercracker's power play that he hadn't even stopped to think what this might do. The deciding vote: Starscream.

Skywarp tried to think of it as compassion, that he pushed up, shoving Starscream off his lap, against Thundercracker. He tried to look at it that he was sparing Starscream the terror of choice—Starscream couldn't choose, not between them. He tried to convince himself he was trying to spare Starscream from a choice which had no winner, a choice that would make him the fulcrum against which to lean the breakdown of the Trine.

In truth, his fury overmastered him. And the only control he had was to get out or to hurt one of them. His cortex already flashed him pictures of possibilities: Starscream reeling from a backhand blow, a spray of energon from a line cut by Skywarp's barbs, Thundercracker gasping as a hard kick crackled his cockpit's amber dome. Skywarp could see it, hear the cracking of the plasglass, hear Thundercracker's pitiful gasp, Starscream's keen of pain. He could feel the shock of the back of his hand striking Starscream, of his bunched hard foot colliding with Thundercracker. He could hear his systems thrum with a brutal pleasure. And it took all the force of will he could muster to push that away, push Starscream away and storm toward the door. He had to get away before that happened.

"You're going back to your little grounder," Thundercracker sneered.

"No," Skywarp said, shaking in his effort to control his rage. He didn't trust himself around anyone right now, not even Barricade. And the thought of Barricade seeing him like this…?

"Don't go…." Starscream's voice was thin and pitiful. He reached a hand out to Skywarp, optics flickering with concern. Skywarp's spark burned for the naked pain and terror on Starscream's face. That Skywarp would leave, that he would not come back. But…he couldn't stay here. He'd go mad. He'd do something, say something he'd regret—even more than what he'd already said and done. Why couldn't they understand he had to get away, to spare them? To keep them safe?

No, it was to keep HIM safe from the consequences of his own damage. Cowardice. Running away.

Yes? So be it. Cowardice. Fine. That name no longer stung.

He turned on his heel-spurs and coded the door. Starscream had given him the codes on the first day.

Starscream's voice—stretched with fear. "Where are you going?" Pleading, helpless. Not trying to stop him. And that's what stopped him, at least for that klik. But the brutal rage re-boiled inside him, and he heard his voice get blade thin and cutting as he said the most hateful, the most hurtful, the most terrifying words he could summon, against the Trine mate who deserved them least.

"I," he said, coldly, as the door whooshed open in front of him, "am Navigant-flying."


	31. Eventuality

Barricade tossed for cycles on the empty berth, tormented by visions of what he could have done to cause this. He knew—he accepted—he'd always come second to the Trine. No: he admitted to an acid envy at the thought. But he would never fight it: it was a battle he couldn't win. Best not to even try. Best to take what you can.

But…what had he done that had caused Skywarp to strip off the spark chamber cover? _When_ had he done that? Barricade uncurled himself, his servos squeaking as he released from the tight ball he'd pulled himself into, and held the battered piece of metal up to his optics, as though he could perhaps read on its dinged up surface the story of disappointment, how he had let Skywarp down so badly, be so undeserving. He could find nothing. Skywarp had been so pleased to get it, almost awestruck. What could he have done to wreck that? His processor scoured his memory cache for anything he could have said or done before falling into recharge. Had he been too pushy? Is that what did it? Too insistent, too demanding?

No. That couldn't be right. Skywarp had more than responded to his physical contact when he woke him up. If he'd done something so bad, Skywarp would not have gone that far, would he have? His systems stirred just at the memory, at the hot glow of Skywarp's red optics, at the teasing tone in Skywarp's voice.

But…what?

It was driving him crazy. He had to know. And the urge to know got stronger and stronger with each passing cycle, as each decaklik ticked by with agonizing slowness. He had to know. He had to find out. And the resentment burning near his spark chamber about the Trine taking him away built as well. He could not bring himself to get angry at Skywarp. But Thundercracker….

Barricade shoved himself off the berth, stopping only to stow the spark chamber cover carefully on one of his storage shelves. He was going to confront them. He would get answers. Even if he didn't like them when he got them.

He couldn't shake the feeling that Skywarp was in trouble. And (a thready voice suggested) needed him.

Needed him.

He stormed up to the A1 corridor, where the largest mechs berthed, to Starscream's door. The code was unlocked. Which meant someone was in there. He slammed it open, remembering, suddenly, the very first time he'd coded this door—he'd needed overrides then—and seen Skywarp for the first time. Everything Skywarp was—beautiful, sensual, powerful, goading, a little untamed…. The memory struck him like a physical blow, and for a handful of kliks, he stood there in the open doorway, almost blinded by its force. Almost not seeing Starscream trembling in a pair of blue, familiar-looking arms. Thundercracker's talons were soothing along Starscream's back, his face nuzzled in Starscream's throat.

Thundercracker's optics homed in him, his hands going rigid against Starscream's engines. "You must be Barricade," he said, coldly.

He's heard of me. At least he's granted me a name, Barricade thought. "Where is Skywarp?" He was a little startled by the harshness in his own voice. He'd never had a nice voice—nothing like Skywarp's warm, deep rumble—but this was hard and raw even for him. He could hear the pain in his own voice.

In Thundercracker's arms, Starscream gave a little shudder, and a pathetic mewling noise. Skywarp might not blame Thundercracker, but Barricade did. For everything. "Skywarp," he barked. "Where is he?"

"He's not here, little grounder." The tone said that he didn't want to be asked any more, because he wouldn't like the answer he'd have to give.

"He is not with you," Starscream murmured. He ducked his head from under Thundercracker's arm, reaching one hand to Barricade. "He has not returned to you?"

The flare of anger dowsed. Something was wrong with Starscream. He wasn't ever like this. He looked…broken.

Barricade turned a hot, angry face toward Thundercracker, his hands balling into fists. "Last time. Where is he?"

Thundercracker laughed. "Does it bother you that he's keeping secrets from you, grounder?"

Barricade ground his mouth together. "Keeping secrets from you, too, then, isn't he?" he retorted. He knew he was right from the flash of white rage on the blue jet's face.

"NONE of your concern." Thundercracker pushed Starscream away, all of the twining compassion of his earlier embrace vanished. "We are a Trine. You are an outsider."

The words struck to the very core, an agonizing deadly dart straight in his spark chamber. Outsider. Not one of us. Alone. He trembled, torn apart by pain and anger and fear.

"Barricade," Starscream said, softly. He'd pushed himself up, leaning against the berth, stretching his long legs along the floor. He gestured Barricade forward, wincing as his right thigh bumped the deck plating. "He did not tell you where he was going?"

"He told me he was coming here." Barricade forced his fists to uncurl. He stepped closer to Starscream, optics flicking warily to Thundercracker. "Has he been here?"

"Yes." Starscream's optics looked…odd. Haunted.

"You don't need to tell him anything," Thundercracker snapped.

"We have nothing to hide from Barricade," Starscream said, quietly. "He is Skywarp's chosen companion."

"Skywarp has made poor choices in the past," Thundercracker said. Barricade's temper boiled. Was he really supposed to stand here and take this? Not just the crack about him—he'd heard more than enough of those, and sharper ones, that this one barely cut. But the implication that Skywarp had done anything wrong—ever—enraged him. He began rounding on the blue jet, until a long bronze hand on his shoulder, threaded through his kibble, stopped him.

"He has gone flying," Starscream said. "As he said he would." The optics flickered in their cages up to Thundercracker. "He did not lie."

"I never said he did." Flat denial—too flat.

"We do not know his whereabouts, either," Starscream explained. "We had thought that perhaps he had returned to you."

Part of Barricade wanted to lie and say he had, at least for a bit before taking off…wherever, just to see the look on Thundercracker's face. "Can't you get him on comm?" He could, too, but…it still felt like an invasion of Skywarp's privacy. He hadn't dared. He wasn't wanted. His own thoughts, his own worries, just coming from Thundercracker as accusations, as truths.

Starscream's hand squeezed shakily against his shoulder. "We cannot. He has cut his comm lines."

Barricade's hot rage crackled, frozen. They couldn't get in touch with him? No. Barricade activated his comm, the private freq. Nothing. Starscream read the stricken look in his optics. "We are worried, also, Barricade."

"We are not worried," Thundercracker said. "Skywarp is prone to fits of…histrionics."

"I do not think that this—"

"Skywarp was overemotional, Starscream," Thundercracker cut his Trine mate off, abruptly. "You know that. He wants us to worry about him."

"He has never," Starscream murmured, almost a whisper, not daring to fully defy his Trine mate, "wanted us to worry about him."

"Oh yes," Thundercracker said, "That was you. I'm sorry, I forgot."

Starscream flinched. Barricade's fists balled again. "Leave. Him. Alone," Barricade said, not caring how ugly his voice sounded now.

"Or you'll do what?" Thundercracker leaned back, amused.

It was ridiculous: he was half of Thundercracker's height and armed with a pitiful spoke weapon and a double handful of talons. Compared with the chain guns, lethal barbs on every limb, missile launchers…he must look pretty foolish.

He didn't care. "This isn't an 'or' thing," he said. "This is how you treat Starscream." And Skywarp. He had no doubt now as to who was responsible for driving Skywarp away. From all of them. The spark chamber cover seemed almost insignificant now. He wanted Skywarp. Perhaps Starscream's worry was contagious. It certainly felt like it—a racing restless coldness taking over his limbs, numbing everything except his aching, aching spark. He would give anything to hear Skywarp's voice again, even if to be told goodbye. Just…be safe, wherever you are, he thought, desperately. The comm freq was dead, but he sent it over anyway. As if he were trying to talk to a ghost.

"That is a Trine matter as well," Thundercracker said, his tone breezy, dismissive, "And before you decide to interfere, recall that this whole thing is because a grounder came where he wasn't wanted."

Where he wasn't wanted. The phrase echoed in the darkest, hollowest parts of Barricade's cortex.

[***]

If love was so wonderful…why was he so miserable? Because it showed him his flaws in high relief, unremitting detail.

Skywarp flew, fast and long, changing vectors and speed without any real plan where he was going, other than to get away. As if he could outrun himself. Astrogation off. Eventually he'd have to go back. Eventually he'd have to face Starscream for his cruelty; Thundercracker for his rage, and Barricade for his…everything. Eventually.

The cold of space had done nothing to soothe the heat of his…he didn't even know what to call it. Rage was almost inadequate to describe it. It was a heat, a non-physical heat that dulled his processors while still, somehow, keeping his senses at maximum. No dulling of his pain here. No escape into blank benediction. He just knew he felt hot and…unsafe. Unsafe to be around, unsafe to even talk to. He had heard clicks as others had tried to contact him—open chan and his private freq. He hadn't answered. Not trusting himself, and then…embarrassed by his shut down and flight. Trapped in his own fury, not knowing how to open up, how to release.

He stopped, cutting his thrusters, shifting modes to hang in space, limbs limp and helpless, exposing as much of himself to the cold of space. As if that would cool him.

How could he go back? How could he face…Starscream, even after what he had said: the deliberate infliction of the worst wound he could make. Hitting him, beating him would have been less cruel. He was (cowardly) glad that he hadn't seen the cutting remark strike home, yet…Thundercracker would use it to turn Starscream against him.

No. He couldn't think like that. He couldn't allow himself to consider the consequences in terms of alliances. That ducked the true issue of the consequences—the core deep pain he had knowingly, callously, willfully, inflicted on Starscream.

And for what? What had Starscream done to pull forth that wrath? It was Thundercracker he was angry at. Thundercracker, who deserved rage and blame. But he had become so accustomed to Starscream that to take everything out on him, to direct every impulse, good and bad, onto the bronze jet had become almost reflex. And part of himself knew (and hated knowing) that Starscream would forgive him, even this betrayal.

You should die. The voice came from someplace deep in his cortex. It didn't sound like Thundercracker, for a change. You deserve no less punishment, it said. Destruction is all you are good for: destruction in battle, destruction on the ones you allegedly love. The more you love them, the more you hurt them. Awful, awful creature.

You should die. But…what would that do? Starscream would…collapse. He was already teetering on the brink, trembling to implode. Skywarp knew he was the opposite—more primed to explode, burst open, scatter across others, his rages and pain turning into deadly shrapnel. Which was why he had come out here, he realized. Where no one would be hurt. Could he inflict that final, fatal blow upon Starscream? Could he leave Starscream, in such ruination, to Thundercracker? Was his death actually…worse than his life?

And Barricade…?

He could not even bear to think what it would do to the grounder. He knew, and hated, the power this gave him because he feared his ability to abuse it: Barricade clung to him with a pure, clean faith. What would his death do to that? Ruin something else beautiful.

All he had to do, the thought came suddenly, that insistent, seductive, voice again, would be to NOT move. All he had to do was float here, his systems exposed to the cold of space, ungreased. It would take time: it would take courage not to give in, to move, to save himself. If he could manage to stay perfectly still, he would die. Eventually. That word again.

Two eventuallies. Either go back and face the chaos you've sown—however inadvertently—or stay here and die. Which required more courage? Which was less like cowardice?

He sighed, steeling himself, and kicked on his astrogation.


	32. InViolate

A/N: Disturbing material that may be read as non/dubcon.

Barricade stormed out of Starscream's recharge. They weren't helping. Thundercracker refused to admit to any concern and Starscream was…no help. Skywarp had gone flying. He had to come back. And Barricade would wait for him. Get him even before his precious Trine. Just…get answers. He didn't even care about the spark cover chamber any more. No, he did; it had simply receded in importance.

He waited by the main flight hangar, the one where he'd given the spark chamber cover to Skywarp. The place was blank, sterile, utilitarian—as was everything on the Nemesis—but to him it was fraught with memories. He could still feel the trembling half-fear as he attached his spark cover's magnets to Skywarp. Before things went wrong.

No, they weren't wrong. They just…needed to get straightened out. And he knew, as much as he knew anything, that this could bring them closer. Skywarp had hated opening up to him, but…his worry had been for nothing. Barricade had shown that then, and would show it again. And again. And again. Until Skywarp finally got it.

His spark surged at the thin sound—dissipated by the vacuum of space—of an approach. Even more when Skywarp landed on the cold hangar, his black plates frosted from the cold, save where his thrusters had cast long warm lines.

Skywarp stood, for a long moment, looking lost.

Now or never, Barricade told himself. He stepped forward. "You're cold."

"I'm fine."

"You're cold," Barricade repeated. "We can warm you up." He remembered that one time, being crushed against Skywarp's chilled armor, the contrast between his heat and Skywarp's coldness impossibly intense.

"I said I'm fine." Skywarp's voice was tense. His posture tight, also. Barricade was troubled by his distance.

"Tell me how I can help?" he asked, meekly.

"You can't," Skywarp said, and the distance in his voice crackled. "Nothing can help. Nothing can fix anything." He refused to meet Barricade's optics.

Barricade was torn between his urge—his need—to get some resolution, and backing down from the hard light in Skywarp's optics. "Didn't mean to make it worse," he mumbled. What was he even thinking? Coming here like a confrontation, like he could force Skywarp to anything. All he wanted was Skywarp to be happy. All he wanted for himself was not to see that look of taut pain on the black face.

"You didn't make it worse," Skywarp said. He tried to push past Barricade, stopped. Teetering on indecision. "Sorry to worry you," he added, his tone rough, ungracious.

Barricade wouldn't lie. Couldn't. "Just want you to be happy," he said. Naked honesty. "Thought I could help."

"You can't." Flat denial.

Barricade felt a twinge of fear, a sharp lance of pain. Distance. Coming between them. Something. He couldn't name it, but it was terrifying to him. He was trying and he was still losing Skywarp. He didn't know what to do. He did the only thing that had worked in the past: he flung his arms around Skywarp's waist, burying his face in the larger mech's chest armor. He felt the arms tighten around him, almost as a reflex, pressing his shoulder against the swell of the cockpit, before the hands shifted, tugging at him, pushing him away.

"I can't," Skywarp said.

"Wasn't asking anything of you." Just…wanting to be held. And to try to communicate how I feel. Without failing.

"You were!" Skywarp snapped. "Always." He felt the smaller mech's devotion like an oppression.

Barricade stiffened, stunned. "Didn't—didn't mean to." His cooling fan kicked on abruptly.

"You did mean to. Look at you: lurking around for me to get back. Like you didn't trust me."

Barricade hadn't thought of it like that. He blinked, stupidly. "I-I trust you," he said, humbly. "Just wanted to talk to you."

"I," Skywarp snarled, "do not feel like talking."

Barricade retreated a step. "Can—can we go recharge together?" He was clutching desperately for some normalcy, some way to bring this back on track. Some way to rewind to where he could start over. His chassis and arms were still cold from contact with Skywarp's frigid armor, as if the cold were eating its way to his core.

"You do not want me to recharge with you."

What? Where was he getting this? Barricade's optics were frantic. "No! I do! Please. I want you."

"You do not want me," Skywarp said, his voice a strange mix of anger and sorrow. He pushed Barricade out of his way, wincing as the smaller mech tumbled to the floor. At the same time, though, he felt the dark surge within him at the sudden fear on Barricade's face. Yes, he thought. Uncontrolled. That's the problem. I can't stop myself. I can't control myself. I can't stop…this.

He lunged down over the smaller mech, slapping one of his palms over Barricade's shoulder. "You wanted me, right? Wanted me to spike you?" His voice sounded like a stranger's voice. Hollow, angry, echoing the nothingness inside him. "Right?"

He took a hateful satisfaction in Barricade's stuttered 'yes', a vicious enjoyment in the confusion and fear warring on his face. His long hands tore open the interface panel, his other thumb reaching to release his own. He paused, his spike hovering in the mouth of Barricade's valve, hating the hot rush of lubricant from his spike, the angry urgency goading him to do it. He waited for Barricade to refuse him. To say no. To resist.

Nothing. Barricade's face was a mask of fear, but he didn't shift a servo to protect himself.

Skywarp snarled, and plunged his spike in the valve. Only the second time he had ever done this to Barricade, the first a moment that had stretched his abilities at control to their breaking point.

He did not have that now.

He drove into Barricade's valve, his optics hard and glittering. Barricade bit down on a cry of pain, the Seeker's spike pushing into him with sudden force. Barricade forced himself still, his hands reaching to the sides, to where Skywarp normally pinned them. Giving in. Allowing. For some reason the gesture infuriated Skywarp even more. "No," he snarled. "This is not like that." He jerked his hips back, deftly flipping the smaller mech onto his belly, hauling the hips back to him, pushing himself forward and low, and reseating his spike in Barricade's valve. He twisted one of Barricade's arms back behind him. He didn't want Barricade to look at him, see him like this. He had this much shame. This much honesty. "Is this what you want from me?"

"Want you to be happy," Barricade's voice was muffled against the floor. He would give anything to make Skywarp happy. Pain? His body? Anything. Skywarp said Barricade was his, and Barricade held that with a faith that was absolute.

"Do I seem happy?" Skywarp twisted Barricade's arm until the smaller mech yelped. He jerked the hips back against him, shoving mercilessly against the thin armor of Barricade's body, watching with a curl of something like contempt as the skirting armor bent or dented or scratched under his assault.

He overloaded, sudden, hard, almost a surprise to himself, as if his rage had turned to lust, and torn through his body and into Barricade's. He felt Barricade shudder, violently, under him, around him, taking his overload and all the fury and hurt pride it had with it. "You only loved me because you thought I'd never do this to you," he said, his voice between hate and despair. "Now I have. Hate me." Please, he pleaded, inwardly.

"No," Barricade said. "Yours. Anything. Everything." He twisted on the ground, trying to turn to face Skywarp. Skywarp released his grip on Barricade's arm, and the grounder rolled over, wincing as his valve released the spike. He reached to embrace Skywarp.

"Anything," Skywarp snarled. "Anything. I'll make you hate me, Barricade." For your own good. For my own good. Go. Leave me to my darkness. If this is how I can force you away, I will. I can endure your hatred and fear more than your devotion. I was afraid to hurt you, afraid to die because I feared I would ruin something beautiful. I was right to fear it. Right to fear myself.

I should have died. Should have let the cold of space take me, become random frozen debris, never found. I should have died before I did this. I thought I would die before I went…this…low.

He pinned Barricade down with his hands, looming over him. Part of him ached to lean in and kiss him, nuzzle against the yielding mouth. Travesty. He resisted, mouth twitching as he activated his chest armor's retraction. Barricade stared at Skywarp's shifting armor, his mouth opening, in a sense of awe and anticipation. "Hate me," he whispered, almost pleading.

He dropped forward, his chest armor thunking against Barricade's, so that the pull of his exposed spark forced a sympathetic retraction in Barricade's own armor. It was an old and awful trick, one that he had learned…how many years ago? He felt the spark expose itself under his, felt a light flare against him, warm and soft and yielding. No resistance. No firewalls. Nothing but an ocean of acceptance reaching up him, a flood tempting him to drown.

He pulled back, suddenly, his rage turning to fear, a dread horror of letting Barricade finally in. Finally seeing, knowing, feeling everything. He saw the light burgeoning under him, gold. It was gold, he thought, with a feeble sense of triumph. It was gold and it was beautiful and it was calling to him, inviting him, promising things he could not put into words, filling him with unfamiliar sensations, tremors of delicate emotion too fragile to endure being named. And Barricade's optics, above it, were glowing reflections of its power.

"I'm a monster," Skywarp whispered, trying to pull away, pull his too close spark from Barricade's.

"You're Skywarp," Barricade said, his talons latching into the chassis armor. Skywarp somehow took his meaning from the clumsy words, as if the sparks flaring between them communicated so much more clearly. He was…more than that. More than his darkness. He didn't believe it, but it seemed sufficient that Barricade did.

And Barricade lay open beneath him, vulnerable, submitting. This was different from Starscream's submission, though. There was no pain, no humiliation, no abjection. Almost, instead, a quiet pride and dignity in Barricade's openness. A show of strength and courage instead of Starscream's exposure of his weakness. Skywarp felt a surge of love that he felt answered in his own spark. And his rage and fear and confusion and pain…were…gone.


	33. Awaken

Skywarp groaned. His first conscious thought was that something was missing. His second conscious thought was of coldness.

He shifted, his armor grating across the textured metal deckplates. The vague feeling that something was missing swelled to an insistent soreness: something was wrong. He onlined his optics. He lay on his belly on the floor of the hangar bay—the coldness of space seeping through the metal, seeping through his own skin. Long smears of sliver streaked the floor, great sweeping arcs that pointed right to Skywarp. The originator, the source.

Oh Skywarp, he thought to himself, what have you done?

It rushed back to him with a force that rocked him where he lay, half-propped on an elbow. Oh no. Barricade. Oh Primus, what had he done? All of his rage, which had previously boiled through his systems, seemed contracted, compacted into an icy knot. His optics flew to his chest armor—purple flakes from the grease, new scrapes told a story he did not want to hear.

He drew himself up into a tight ball, his head bowed between his fore-joints, long arms wrapped over his legs as if to hold himself from flying apart. What had he been thinking? No, he knew what he had been thinking; he just wasn't willing to admit he could actually push Barricade to such lengths.

Well, he thought, it worked. You wanted him to hate you. To run away. For his own safety. He's not safe anymore, but he ran. This is what you wanted.

Only…it wasn't.

Well, what do you want? What do you think you deserve?

Two different questions. Entirely. The first: he wanted…everything. Wanted that warm open emotion, that strange hurt sweetness, the harsh power of the smaller mech's devotion. He'd ruined that, but Skywarp would do anything to have that again. He knew this made him weak. Susceptible. He knew it made him naïve.

What he deserved…this. More than this. More than abandonment by his Trine, more than a silent farewell from Barricade.

Well…what now? He had to do something. No matter how much he might will it otherwise, time crept forward, he still functioned. He had to…find a way to keep this at this level, remind himself continually of the agony he deserved, of what he had done to the one mech who deserved it least.

You thought you loved him. You do not do that to things that you love. You do not betray them, abuse them, violate them.

You are…there are no words vile enough to describe what you are.

What do you want? What would you give?

I want…Barricade. Even to be hated by him. I owe him that much. I owe him the elevation of an apology, I owe him that power to reject me, to refuse forgiveness. I have taken power from him. This is the only way I can give him…some crumb of it back.

He struggled to his feet, a little surprised at the way he staggered, his limbs not wanting to obey. No. I owe this to him. It's right that I suffer.

He stumbled against the wall, managing the door only by scraping his hand along the wall's surface. His gyroscopic stabilizers were spinning, making it hard to balance.

He made his painstaking way down the hall, hand braced along the bulkhead. Everything felt…wrong. Maybe he should seek out the others? No. He…could not deal with Thundercracker muddled like this. He wanted to shut down. It was an effort to even move. Only his mind was restless—his frame seemed to resist movement, as though his servos had tightened on him, each motion having to force itself through impossibly high pressure. His energon levels were depleted—the boost he had taken from the energon Barricade had given him had worn off, burned off by his mad cold flight.

He could make it to Barricade's recharge. He could endure Barricade's rage, his judgment, whatever punishment Barricade wanted to dole out. He could do that much. Had to do that much. He forced himself to focus on that as he dragged himself down the corridor to the smaller mech recharge cubes. He sucked in a bracing vent of air before he coded the door—a little surprised when the door responded. Barricade hadn't changed the codes?

The door opened into darkness. "Barricade?" he said, his voice croaking in his vocalizer. There was no answer. He knew he was silhouetted against the light of the corridor. "Please?"

No response. But no rejection. He wobbled, catching himself on the doorframe. "Can I talk to you, please?"

Still no response. Skywarp hesitated, but the low energon caused his vision to whirl wildly. His talons dug into the frame, gouging it. He had to recharge. Now. "I just want…." He fell into the room, landing hard enough to crack one of his patellar plates. The pain lanced up his leg, black and sharp. He looked up, his optics cycling down to only half power, everything blurring in front of him. The berth was impossibly far away. And the blackness was swirling in on him like a whirlpool.

Barricade couldn't describe how he felt: he didn't think the words existed, really. An only partly digested mix of pain and confusion and…love.

Memories of other violations (not the same, not the same! his processor protested, vehemently) fought within him, clashing with the memory of Skywarp's pain and fear that had driven him to it, the trembling disbelief from the Seeker as he'd encountered no resistance from Barricade's spark.

He felt a bright kind of pride, a memory of the sensation of Skywarp leaning over him, sparks blazing together, feeling his own light wrapping, twining, caressing Skywarp's own. It had felt better than his feeble imagination had suggested. Magical. Sacred. Beautiful. And he had felt Skywarp answer to him, got to feel as if Skywarp, long moments of doubled sensation where he was himself but he was also somehow Skywarp, looking down at him; the gold light and the purple; the love and the fear. He had felt Skywarp's fear push back against him. He had not fought it. In time, his spark had told him. In time. He had felt, through it, all of Skywarp's fear, self-loathing; and he had pushed at him, in turn, how HE saw the Seeker—powerful, gentle, breathtaking. And he knew what had driven the jet to attack him, what he was trying to do—it wasn't out of hate, it was out of fear and a twisted kind of love. Hurting Barricade to prevent him from hurting him worse.

And at the same time…violation. Part of Barricade's body, his core, felt numb. Switched off. As it had for those other times, against those more violent, more fought-against, intrusions. He hadn't wanted it to shut down. Barricade felt an awful, tight regret. He knew better, KNEW that Skywarp hadn't meant it—not that way. Knew he didn't need to switch himself off like that. But…he couldn't help it. Systems out of his control. What had previously saved him from despair was tearing at him—the fear that he could shut off, go numb, feel nothing.

He could still feel the sparking like a glow around him, a wide warm glow, more powerful than the EM field. It had hurt but it had been a beautiful pain. He trusted Skywarp so much, had wanted it so much. Skywarp was everything to him; he himself, nothing. He didn't have very much worth anything and if anything he had or was or could give would make Skywarp happy, he would willingly give it. Pain? Compared to what he'd felt in Skywarp? Nothing. Fear? Nothing. He could only lay himself open before it, not resist, be open and trusting, despite the cascade of bad memories. His way of fighting for Skywarp, against Skywarp's darkness.

He could take the pain, the nascent betrayal, because it was so much less than what Skywarp had suffered. He would do this. He owed him this.

His shiftcycle ended—that soon? It seemed it had flown by, while he, half-distracted, sorted through his thoughts. And he found himself, suddenly, exhausted. He hadn't realized how he had been using the constant mild distraction of his job to keep himself going. All he wanted, he thought, as he walked back to his recharge berth, was to curl up on his berth and maybe figure things out within himself. He had…no idea what to do now. No idea what he'd say to Skywarp—whether he wanted to hit him or cry or hold him or ask to be used again, any way Skywarp needed. Or…some incoherent conglomeration of all of them. He needed stillness to recover, space to think about what would make Skywarp happy. And time to prepare himself. He hoped these were not selfish needs.

He coded open his door.

Skywarp felt the light fall across him, heard the sudden rushed intake of breath. His optics cycled slowly online. "Barricade," he whispered. His hand clutched slowly on the floor. He saw Barricade look down at it, his expression unreadable. Oh, what had he done with this hand to Barricade? He didn't want to even try to remember.

The shock of seeing Skywarp curled on the floor froze Barricade to the spot. He wasn't ready for this. He couldn't…even…make words.

Skywarp struggled to push upright. The fact that it was a struggle shook Barricade. He'd never seen Skywarp not strong. Part of him wanted to rush over, throw his arms around the jet, help him up. But part…was a little afraid. Afraid of himself, more than Skywarp. Afraid the numbness would spread and the pure fierce hot joy he had felt would chill and grow hard.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. He winced at the way the words sounded, cursing for the thousandth time the ugly grate of his vocalizer.

"Wanted…." Skywarp shook his head. He didn't know what he'd wanted. This had been a mistake. That much, he knew. When you don't have a mission goal, you don't know how to plan your attack.

Attack.

Skywarp quailed back at his own metaphor. Even in his own processor he could not escape it.

"I should go." Ridiculous statement: he could barely move.

"No." Barricade blocked the door. "You…okay?"

Part of Skywarp wanted to rage, 'do I look okay?' Part of him wanted to howl at Barricade, push him away, thrust him aside, make a break for it. Barricade couldn't restrain him. But another part wanted, so badly, to touch him. "No," he managed. "Not okay." So not okay he couldn't even find words. Not even talking about his low-charge.

"You need energon?"

Slag, yes, desperately. But he needed something more than that, something he couldn't even bring himself to ask. He nodded, dumbly.

Barricade crossed the room, the door coding shut behind him. "Not Seeker grade," he said, apologetically, bringing the small pouch of mauve-grey energon to Skywarp from where he'd dug it from his maintenance fac storage shelf. "Probably don't want to drink it."

"Okay," Skywarp said, humbly, poking at his refuel intake. He hadn't used it in so long he fumbled. Barricade's talons were sure and confident, unscrewing the cap, setting the panel in its catches. "Barricade, I—"

"No talking," Barricade said, crisply. "Not till you've gotten this." He lifted the pouch, letting gravity take it down the hose into Skywarp's intake. Skywarp lowered his head, obedient. His optics took in the smaller mech, standing within the circle of his body. How easily Skywarp could reach over, throw him down. Barricade must be thinking it, must be worried about it. Only…it didn't show. Barricade kept his optics neutrally on the draining pouch.

Skywarp's systems sighed at the influx of energon. Yes, the grade was abysmal. It burned in his catalyzer, but it rushed to his weakened servos and control nodes. He felt…steadier. A little more in control. He pushed up to a sitting position, almost optic-to-optic with Barricade. One hand hovered around Barricade's shoulder, begging for an invitation to touch. Barricade didn't give it. Deliberate or not? He tried not to get too upset. He didn't deserve to touch him. "Barricade," he said, watching the smaller mech skillfully wrap the hose around his little talons, talons that Skywarp had felt…so many times along his body. So much smaller, more delicate, than his own, huge, clumsy hands. "I…," he stopped, Barricade's optics expectant on his face. Expecting what? "I don't know what to say," he said, lamely. "I want to apo-apologize," his voice gave an unaccustomed crackle, "but…I know that doesn't fix anything."

Barricade's face was unreadable. "Don't need to."

"I know," Skywarp sighed. "it's useless. And you don't have to forgive me. I'm not even asking for that."

"What are you asking for?" No harshness or judgment. A simple question. Everything from Barricade had no motive. It scared Skywarp that still, still, Barricade could be so direct. So simple. He hadn't learned the serpentine deceits of betrayal. Skywarp hoped he never would.

Asking for? The impossible. To erase time. To undo this, undo…himself. Even if it would mean never having met Barricade in the first place, missing out on all of this…it would mean never having that on his conscience. "I just want to face what I've done. Do what you want. Yell or scream or insult me. Anything…please. Anything to make you feel better. Even a little." He bowed his head.

"Anything?" Barricade asked.

"Please. I hurt you. Hurt me back." He tried to brace himself—for a blow, for an insult. For what he deserved.

A strange, choking sound, and Skywarp felt the silver talons draw a gentle line across one folded wing. Barricade shook his head, optics troubled. "'Member, you said, once? That Starscream saw you and all he could see was that he'd hurt you?" Skywarp nodded. Yes, he remembered that. Another awful night. Another night he'd gone too far. Barricade lifted his optics, all four wide and earnest upon Skywarp's face. "Don't do that to me."


	34. Intrusion

Barricade had helped Skywarp crawl up onto his berth before he'd left for the Seeker's quarters to get him a cube of the right kind of energon. He was unsettled at how weak Skywarp was. Even more unsettled at the sight of the jet sprawled on his berth—too many memories from before, clashing with the now and echoing against all that had come between. He'd rushed off, with a haste driven just as much by his desire to get away as the need for Skywarp's energon. He wasn't ready for that yet. Part of him had wanted to lie next to Skywarp, twining his arms around the jet's neck. Yet part of him, numb, was afraid Skywarp would want to interface and…he afraid of his own fear. Ridiculous, he told himself. Skywarp wouldn't push him. Not weak as he was.

He juggled three cubes against his chassis—he wanted no chance that Skywarp would be undercharged—as he headed back down the corridor to his cube. He froze outside the door, hearing voices within. More than that: Thundercracker's voice.

A white rage built in him. He coded the door, bursting into the room.

The blue jet loomed over the low berth, Skywarp propped up on one elbow beneath him.

"And so you chose to come here," Thundercracker was saying. Hostile, like an accusation.

"Yes," Skywarp said, quietly defiant. "I had something I needed to do."

"Ridiculous."

Barricade glared, pushing past Thundercracker, one of his shoulder-tires whacking callously against the blue jet's rib strut. "Energon," he said, briskly, extending one cube to Skywarp. He turned to stack the others on a shelf near the berth. Skywarp took the cube gratefully, cupping it in both hands, his long metal claws trailing along Barricade's smaller talons. A deliberate gesture. Barricade's spark warmed and chilled at the same time.

"Thank you," Skywarp said, trying to catch Barricade's gaze, and failing.

"Why did you not come to us?" Thundercracker pushed. Barricade could feel his glare like a targeting laser between his wing fairings. He didn't care.

"I told you," Skywarp said. He paused, raising the cube to his mouth, his optics closing as he drank. The clean Seeker energon raced through his systems. The mauvy groundframe sludge had kept him going, but this…this was better. He pulled Barricade near the dented edge of the berth, his mouth seeking the smaller mech's, glossa probing gently. Demonstrating possession, defiance, bond in front of Thundercracker. Thin courage, but a start.

Barricade could feel the higher grade energon tingling on his lip plates, his glossa. Pink and effervescent. He remembered when it had made him so desperately happy.

He pulled away. He couldn't…not right now.

He saw the pain of rejection naked on Skywarp's face, and wished he could explain. But even if Thundercracker weren't here, Barricade wasn't sure he could find the words. His spark ached. I love him, he thought, but I …just can't do this right now. I can't.

"Did you even think," Thundercracker said, his voice a tight thin blade, designed to cut, "of Starscream? He's paralyzed with worry."

Skywarp's optic shutters clapped together, wincing in guilt.

Barricade turned to the blue jet. "Get out," he said, plainly.

"You do not tell me what to do," Thundercracker made a show of tilting his head down, emphasizing his greater height. As if Barricade were literally, beneath his notice until now.

"It's my recharge," Barricade said, looking up, just as defiantly. His talons bunched into fists.

"This is a Trine matter," Thundercracker countered.

Barricade growled, throwing out his spoke weapon as he dropped into an attack crouch.

"Thundercracker," Skywarp said, "Leave."

"Skywarp," Thundercracker said, his tone admonishing.

Skywarp sat up, the almost empty cube clattering to the berth, the pink liquid spilling across the worn metal. "Leave," he repeated. "Barricade wants you to leave."

"I do not take orders from grounders." The optics rolled to Barricade and then to Skywarp, bold in their insolence. "And neither should you."

"I'm not taking orders. I'm respecting another mech's wishes."

"Another mech." Thundercracker snorted. "A grounder. With whom you're interfacing."

"Yes," Skywarp said. "To all." He swung his legs off the berth, his black footplates clacking against the floor.

Thundercracker took a step back, holding out his hands, placating. "It's just that…we're worried about you. Since you got involved with this grounder, you've changed."

Skywarp's optics widened as if at Thundercracker's audacity. "Really." His voice was tight and cold. Still in his attack crouch, Barricade risked a glance. Skywarp looked…tight. Wound up. He'd been more open when it was just Barricade. Was this what a Trine was like? Barricade had the briefest thought that all of his earlier envy had been misplaced. Maybe it was better to be alone—and suffer the worst torments of loneliness—than to have to belong.

"Starscream says so."

Barricade felt a brief flare of rage, that guttered almost instantly. No. Starscream did not believe that. If that's what he'd truly believed, he'd lied to Barricade. And who would stoop to lie to Barricade? He hoped Skywarp knew that, too.

"You know what?" Skywarp said, his hands jumping, agitated, almost like they were trying not to make fists. "For once, leave Starscream out of it."

The pain on Skywarp's face Barricade didn't understand, but he knew Thundercracker was causing it. "LEAVE," Barricade growled. He revved his spoke weapon in an unmistakable threat.

Thundercracker burst into an ugly laugh. "You think you can frighten me with that pitiful weapon?" He lunged forward, striking Barricade with the full force of his forward momentum. Barricade staggered against the shelves, datatracks and other objects crashing to the floor.

Barricade's audio was filled with a roar, and he saw a black blur as Skywarp threw himself at Thundercracker. Barricade had seen Skywarp fighting with Starscream, once, that rough horseplay in his work-cube. This was…as Starscream would say, not that. This was vicious and intending to hurt. And Thundercracker struck back in kind.

Barricade struggled upright, his feet slipping on the spilled objects, more shaken by the sight of their violence than Thundercracker's actual assault. The blue jet had merely intended, he knew, to put him in his place: shut him off, shut him down. Nothing he hadn't felt a thousand times. But…no one had ever stood up for him. No one had ever…gone against his own Trine. He'd never been worth the effort. He still wasn't.

"Stop!" he yelled, helplessly rushing to the two grappling jets, their limbs screeching metal-on-metal against the walls of his cube, one fist denting at his berth. He couldn't get any closer, couldn't find a way to separate them. Pink energon and yellowgreen lubricant spattered from them, one of them? Both of them? Someone was getting hurt. Barricade couldn't bear it. "Stop fighting, please!" He winced as one of them got the back of his helm slammed into the partition for the maintenance facility. Oh frag, what was he going to do?

He threw himself onto them, not to attack, but just to try to tear them apart, get between them. So they wouldn't hurt each other. It struck him as a physical metaphor of what he had done—come between them. But right now, he just wanted them to stop.

He tried to wrestle one of Skywarp's arms away from hitting Thundercracker. That wouldn't solve anything. It would only make this Trine thing worse.

Skywarp roared, his red optics tight, tiny circles, zeroing in on Barricade's face with an expression of cold rage Barricade had never seen before. "Stay out of this," Skywarp snarled, bodily throwing Barricade aside. He had never felt his smaller size and weakness quite as much as right then, slammed against the side of his berth, one of Skywarp's talons gouging in under his chassis armor. He saw Thundercracker take advantage of the opening in Skywarp's guard, and claw at the black folded wing.

Stay out of this. It echoed in Barricade's cortex, throughout his whole frame, which suddenly seemed hollow and numb. Stay out of this. You don't belong. Not one of us. Pushed away.

He gathered his shaking legs under him, and bolted from the room, burning with fear and rejection.


	35. Last Song

A/N Yeah, this is hamfistedly crammed after last week's events-Barricade's running down the corridor and has a flashback. Someone gave me a prompt and it was the only way I could fit it in the timeline. However, on the plus side, they get laid! ^_^

Barricade ran through the corridor, aching with memory. He remembered…so much differently. Before things went so wrong. But…another time when Skywarp had, if more gently, pushed him away. He should have seen it then. Should have known. He wasn't able to. He wasn't allowed. Stay out of this. You do not belong. You cannot come with me.

He wanted to go. Really, really badly. He wanted to go so badly it hurt. But he didn't know how to ask. Didn't want to sound dumb. Pathetic. Begging. He tried to tell himself that the stark terror he felt was silly. Skywarp would come back. Skywarp wouldn't leave…forever. It was just a trip to an orbital station. Just…something that required him, needed him more than Barricade did.

Barricade felt irrationally jealous of the war for taking Skywarp from him, even for a decacycle. So much could happen he didn't want to think about. Skywarp could be injured, or killed, or could meet someone else or forget about Barricade or get called to another mission or forget about Barricade or just…have time to think things over and realize how much better he could do…than Barricade.

Barricade reached for one of Skywarp's sleep-limp hands, sliding his talons between the larger ones. Some dampened reflex caused the black armored hand to curl at the contact. Oh, he would miss this. Everything about this: the warm, lightly vibrating weight of Skywarp's bulk on top of him, the rich scent of his external joint lubricant, the enveloping pressure of their EM fields. Just the knowing that another mech was here, with him. Wanted to be here, with him. Something he had never had before. Every moment was precious, and a whole deca seemed like an eternity.

He was mourning him already.

He hadn't dared repeat those three words again. He held them close to his spark, but he could feel them bubbling out, exerting pressure, from time to time. Like now.

"I love you," he breathed. It felt like pressure releasing just to say it. Even though Skywarp wasn't awake. Even though he couldn't hear.

The bulk on top of him shifted. "Mumph," Skywarp mumbled, his hand closing even tighter around Barricade's. He was always slow to online. Barricade adored it: the slightly bleary expression in the unfocussed optics, the buzz of systems coming online all around him. As though the whole world were coming to life.

For Barricade, that's what it felt like: His whole world coming to life.

"Hey, little spike," Skywarp said, the sound rumbling through his chassis. "How is it you're always online before me?"

Because I want to lie here and feel you, Barricade thought. I want to remember every part of you, awake or asleep. I can never have enough of you. Never. His face tightened into a small smile. "Takes you so long to online," he said.

Skywarp grinned. "Yeah, well, these are important systems that need to heat up, little spike."

"Important like what?" He loved when Skywarp teased him like this. He had a feeling he knew what was coming.

"Important," Skywarp said, bending down, pushing his mouth against Barricade's, slipping his glossa over Barricade's, "Like." He dropped down to Barricade's grille, leaving another popping kiss, "This." He licked the armor plate over Barricade's interface hatch, pausing to look up over the length of Barricade's chassis. Barricade's overload systems onlined with a shudder. He wanted Skywarp so much. He couldn't imagine how he could live through the decacycle without him. It…ached.

No, he told himself. He's here, now. Don't borrow from the future. Don't turn him into a ghost. "That's pretty important," he forced himself to say, bringing himself back to the moment, his systems flush with desire and happiness. He loved these moments—warm, intimate, teasing. He would do nothing to chill them.

"_Pretty _important?" Skywarp said, quirking one supraorbital ridge. "I'm not going to have this for a whole decacycle." He dropped another series of kisses on Barricade's pelvic frame, burying in the flurry of touches his hand deftly opening the interface panel. "Don't know how I'm going to survive," he said, his voice dropping off at the end, his exvents warm and arousing on Barricade's exposed spike.

Makes two of us, Barricade thought, squirming. He moaned as Skywarp prodded his spike with his glossa.

"Mine," Skywarp said, lifting his head, before enveloping the spike with his mouth. Barricade flopped back against the berth, almost overwhelmed. Skywarp's glossa was eager and active, a warm, alive pressure teasing the nodes of his spike. He held himself rigid, barely daring to breathe or move. Yes, he thought. Yours. His optics drifted closed, his cortical relays overwhelmed by the flood of sensation from his spike. He wanted to look, but it was too much to bear. He whimpered, feeling the charge build up across the nodes, feeling the pickup in Skywarp's EM field, echoing his own arousal. His talons scratched across the berth, until Skywarp reached up and tangled one set of talons in his own. Barricade's breath came in gasps and ragged pants until he could no longer bear it: his talons clutched into Skywarp's hand cabling, his body arched rigid as the overload swept through him, flooding release out of his spike.

He flopped down, trembling, rapt, forcing his talons to loosen their grip. Skywarp laughed around Barricade's spike, the vibration sending him into another wave of pleasure. Skywarp released the spike, reluctantly, his black glossa flicking sliver around his mouth. "Mine," he said, his optics blazing.

"Yes," Barricade breathed. Anything Skywarp wanted. His desire? His pain? Anything. The enormity of his emotion frightened him, but he couldn't back away from it, couldn't deny it. Starscream had been right—he had to hold onto it. Not be afraid. It was powerful and pure and beautiful. "Want you."

"Just had me, little spike." Skywarp clambered up his frame, bending into the kiss Barricade reached up for. Barricade's talons stroked around the satin smooth black helm. So familiar. So beloved.

"Know what I mean." Barricade nuzzled against the chevrons of the jaw, his talons feather-stroking the underside. He felt Skywarp's breath hitch slightly.

"Hmmm," Skywarp teased. "Not sure you're ready for any more. Are you?" He gave a teasing probe between Barricade's lip plates, before curling around to look at Barricade's body beneath him. Barricade grinned back at him. Oh yes. Always. "Well, then," Skywarp laughed, his optics meeting Barricade's. "Guess you are."

"Guess I am." He wriggled on the berth as Skywarp pushed off him, moving to settle himself over Barricade's pelvic frame. He gave a soft sound as Skywarp's valve settled over his spike, the warm interior yielding against his slicked spike, the valve's cinching mechanisms spiraling down against him, Skywarp's hands almost automatically taking Barricade's wrists, pushing the tires into the berth.

Skywarp paused, his optics strange, almost liquid. "Have I ever told you how happy you make me, Barricade?"

Barricade felt a tremor run through him, like a shock, a jolt. Yes, he thought. In a hundred thousand different ways. Still…hearing it…. His talons curled around Skywarp's, his body shifting the spike in the black jet's valve. He didn't trust himself to respond any other way.

The strange intensity left Skywarp's optics, replaced by the warm, teasing look Barricade remembered, and he began a slow even rhythm against Barricade's spike, his thigh armor sliding silkily along Barricade's hips, his hands curling around the tires of Barricade's wrists. His gaze never left Barricade's face, and that's when it struck him that Skywarp could feel it too, that Skywarp felt something desperate and precious in these last cycles they had together. It gave him a burning hope that Skywarp would miss him, too. That he wouldn't be forgotten. Not so easily as he feared.

It was sweet and beautiful, the slow surge of the black jet's body over his, the smooth slide of armor over armor, the elegant, even gusts of Skywarp's exvents against Barricade's chassis, the air pushing in, delicate caresses into his exposed under arm cabling. The indefinable push of something between them, something deep and rich and filling the darkness around them. Barricade felt a sharp beautiful pain as the overload hit him, pushing into Skywarp as though hoping to reduce the hard metal between them to something softer, something permeable. Some way that he could become one with Skywarp, never have to leave him.

Skywarp's talons grated against the berth, his body shuddering in the three sharp, short jolts that signaled his own overload. He folded his long arms, elbows bending to the berth, lowering his weight on top of Barricade, the spike still in his valve, warm fluid trickling between them, slicking and affirming the contours of their bodies. "I am going to miss this—miss you, little spike." Skywarp pulled Barricade's body against his, his cockpit digging in below Barricade's grille.

"Take me with you," Barricade blurted into the black plating of Skywarp's chest armor. Probably, the thought ran wildly through his head, a handspan away from the spark chamber. The arms tightened around him, Skywarp rolling to his side. He felt the jet's head lower to his, the exvents warm across the top of his head, his comm array. The long legs curled up around him as well, until he was in a warm cocoon of Skywarp's body.

"Wish I could, little spike." The arms released him and they pushed back at the same time, eager to look at each other, both achingly aware of the coming separation.

Barricade knew his own worry, his own fears: being forgotten, abandoned, replaced. But he couldn't imagine what was behind the sudden sorrow in Skywarp's optics, nor the sudden tremor in Skywarp's voice as he added, "Where I'm going, Barricade, you can't follow."


	36. Bolt

Barricade ran, without any idea of where he was going. He had no place to go. His recharge? No. Skywarp's recharge briefly crossed his mind, but right now anything that reminded him of Skywarp—what used to be—he was not sure he could handle. Which left out his work cube, as well. Was there anywhere on the ship not marked with a memory of Skywarp?

He was exhausted—this, on top of the long shiftcycle after…the previous night. And he was leaking energon down his torso from where Skywarp's barb had caught him. Unintentional, he told himself. An accident. Not his fault.

He stopped, doubling over from the pain. He couldn't run aimlessly through the ship all night. And he had security codes to any room on the ship. One of them, ONE of them, had to be free of memories of Skywarp.

Passive Sat. Barricade almost never went into the satellite monitoring, and he'd never seen Skywarp there. That was safe…wasn't it?

He forced himself upright, to the door, his talons trembling as he coded the override. He just…needed…a place where things would stop. Where he could get himself together. Where he could think.

The room was dark and quiet, the only sound the soft hum of the satellite captures. They'd be scoured in the morning for any changes and anomalies, most simply just stored in case there was a need for them. Everyone's least favorite job: no one stuck around here after shift.

Barricade settled himself on one of the monitoring chairs, his hands splinting his injured side. Here, no memories. Here, just the slow, tedious splay of ground and space pointed satellites. Here, with the skies and the planet above and below him, spooling their images across the screens, caught between, here, maybe he could find some center. Find balance. Find himself.

Skywarp. He had lost him. Somehow, even doing everything he could, he had lost Skywarp. He had never seen a look of icy fury like that before. He had done…something to deserve it. Held on too tightly? Tried too hard? Been too open? He couldn't tell.

He wasn't, he finally admitted, up to thinking right now. Maybe later, but right now all he seemed capable of doing was feeling. Physical: His side hurt—his armor dented and a line nicked, pink energon slicking his fingers. His shoulder and head hurt from when Thundercracker had thrown him against the shelf. But…those were nothing compared to the terrible pain in his spark. Oh, Skywarp. All the pain he could ever feel, a core-deep agony, a ripping, burning, terrible pain, summed up in those two words.

He bowed his head, drawing his knees up to press against his wound, to give him a place to hide his face, hide his failure. Even when you try you are not good enough. Love? What power did you think it had? Now you see how powerless it truly is. You have…less than you started with. Beautiful memories, which you have ruined by trying too hard. Not even a place to stay. When he did go back, when he could go back, he'd have a mess to clean—broken things to sort through. But what were broken datatracks compared to this?

He struggled to breathe, squeezing his arms tighter around his knees, as if trying to make himself disappear, a singularity, sucking into him all of the misery and failure. If he could take away Skywarp's unhappiness and pain, he would gladly die. But he didn't think that would help anything at all. Nothing he could think of could help. He felt himself shivering—checked his core temp. No. His core was running high, not cold. He forced himself to vent slowly and evenly, bringing more air to cool his systems, but even his vents were thin and forced, as though his airway was constricted.

What do you want? I want…impossible things. To go back in time. To know what I did wrong. To know how to fix it. How to fix them. To save Skywarp. Impossible things for someone as pathetic as Barricade. He'd never felt his helplessness as keenly as now.

He was so wrapped in his own despair that he didn't hear the door open. Didn't hear the approaching footsteps, or the rustle of panels. Heard nothing until the icy voice spoke from over his shoulder.

"Well, now," Soundwave said, "What have we here?"

[***]

Skywarp knelt amid the wreckage of Barricade's recharge. Everything: ruined. Barricade's datatracks. A few probably irreplaceable mementos. The berth was dented, and long scratches scarred the walls. A testimony to everything that was wrong with Skywarp. Written large, scrawled everywhere. All his damage, visited upon Barricade. Even the spark chamber cover, which had come to rest between Skywarp's knees, bore new damage, the magnets pried off one side, the metal disk dented out of shape. Nothing had escaped.

He could replace it—most of it. He could get the walls repaired and a new berth installed. He could replace all the datatracks. But it wouldn't…fix what was really broken. Just more cosmetic fixes, surface patches. It wouldn't repair what was actually broken.

Which was…Skywarp.

Thundercracker had left him shortly after Barricade had run from the room. No need to continue, really. Thundercracker had proved his point. Just a few murmured words about how worried Starscream must be getting and…Skywarp had deflated. Promised to follow. And he would. He had no choice, not really. Stay behind for Barricade? For what? Apologize? Look how well this last attempt went. What does he have left you can break? You want to stay around and try for that? He could do nothing here. And…Barricade deserved his room back, his privacy. He deserved to feel safe. Skywarp couldn't promise that tonight—the room was a wreck—but he could at least remove himself, and make it peaceful. Not make Barricade even more unhappy.

He looked around for a datapad to leave a note. Just something telling Barricade he wouldn't bother him anymore and he'd see to repairing the damaged stuff and that he was so…unutterably sorry. The two pads he'd found were broken—one's screen shattered, the other had its input panel dented beyond use. Which left…vocal. No. He couldn't. Barricade didn't want to hear from him.

He pulled himself to his knees, heavily, bracing one hand against the battered berth. The spark chamber cover clung desperately by its magnets onto one of his fingers, a symbol refusing to be ignored. Oh, this. He imagined, suddenly, what Barricade must have thought, must have felt, stumbling across it in the dark. Rejection. Pain. No explanation, no hint, no chance to brace himself for it.

Bitter, the irony, when Skywarp considered why he'd taken the cover off.

He would not make that mistake again. He knew now why Starscream really prized Skyfire's chamber cover. As a reminder not only of what he had had, but what he had lost.

[***]

Starscream trembled as he felt a weight settle in behind him.

"He's fine," Thundercracker's voice was husky near his audio, a long blue arm wrapping over his chassis, a familiar bulge of a cockpit between his engines.

"You…spoke to him?" Starscream's fingers twined into Thundercracker's.

"Yes. Don't worry." A slight hesitation. "We had a little argument, and…he just needs some time to cool down. That's why he's not here. It's," a pause, and a slow trail of hot breath down Starscream's folded wing, "it's not you, Starscream."

"I don't want him to be angry at all," Starscream murmured. "We're a Trine." We're all we have.

"I know," Thundercracker said, his voice soft, vibrating against the thrusters. "I don't want him to be angry, either." He pulled his hand from Starscream's grasp, stroking down the front of the bronze body. A drip of coolant fell on the bronze hand.

"You are injured?" A question. An invitation to fear.

A hollow laugh. "I told you—he needs some time too cool. And I don't want to see you upset, either. We all have our weaknesses, Starscream. We all have our strengths. Skywarp is just…he needs us right now. Needs us to help him." The hand teased gently between the thighs, feathering against the panel's seams.

"You are not upset with him?" Another question, hiding a deeper need.

"No. Of course not." Thundercracker leaned over, inviting Starscream to drop back into his cradling arm, reaching for a kiss. He smirked around Starscream's responding mouth. "But he needs us to do his thinking for him right now, all right?" His hand slicked possessively down Starscream's side, feeling the satiny smoothness of the bare metal, so unlike the slick shine of his own enamel.

"But…Barricade makes him happy." Starscream shifted, uncomfortable, reaching into Thundercracker's touch.

"Then," Thundercracker murmured, his mouth tracing the arc of Starscream's collar armor, "we shall make him happier."

The door coded open, a shadow falling among shadows over them. Skywarp's figure, shoulders hunched, wings drooping. New scratches caught in the dim light from the corridor, winking out as the door closed, quietly, behind him. He threw himself onto the berth. Starscream pulled away from Thundercracker, sharing an anxious glance, as he risked a gentle touch to Skywarp's engine.

Skywarp flinched. "Don't want to talk," he mumbled into the berth.

Starscream folded himself on top of Skywarp, brushing his cheekflares against the back of the black helm. "Then do not talk," Starscream murmured into his audio, his hands stroking gently at his Trine mate's rigid frame. "You need never explain yourself to us, Skywarp," he whispered, "to me."


	37. Threat

Barricade ended up in his work cube. He'd have to be there sooner or later at any rate, he figured, and…he wanted desperately to be alone some place where he could secure code the door. He couldn't stop shaking—he was surprised he could recode the door on the first try. He just wanted to sit. To be safe. He hunched in his chair, plugging in his online recharge. He called up his duty assignments for the upcoming shift listlessly. To give him something to do, something to think about other than…everything.

Soundwave…if only Soundwave had simply raped him. Halfway numb from Skywarp, he wouldn't have felt it at all. But instead, he had done…something even worse, deploying his tentacle probes along Barricade's frame, prying into systems—his cortex, his memories. Like a pleasureless, one-sided spark link. Being taken, stripped, robbed of every decency, every privacy. In the sparking, Barricade could have held back, could have resisted. In what Soundwave had done to him…he had no choice. Paralyzed, even; his motor control shut down.

Soundwave's laughter echoed still in his processor, reveling in the information he had snatched from Barricade's paralyzed processor. "Yes," Soundwave had murmured. "And won't Megatron find this interesting when he returns…."

And he was gone. That simply, leaving Barricade broken, shattered, on the floor.

And now Barricade was here, inside the only safety he could find, thumbing through his duty roster, having to struggle to make the symbols read to his optics. Was this an aftereffect of the tentacles?

His elbow was gunky from the injury to his side—Skywarp's injury. Unintentional. He forgave that. Forgave Skywarp…everything. He just didn't know how he'd ever face him again. Didn't know how he'd do…anything again. The walk back to his recharge seemed insurmountable. And the wreckage he knew he'd have to face…he could barely summon the image, much less cope with the reality.

Barricade spent his entire duty shift in his work cube, even his refuel break. He didn't care. His online recharge could keep him going. Or not. He just couldn't stir the energy to get out of the chair, to move, to feel anything, even hunger. Just…leaden emptiness.

A cycle after his shift ended, his door coded open. But…but I'd secured that, he thought, dimly. He'd shut down his monitors at the end of shift, staring at the blank screen, trying to project some scenario onto the darkness that would fix things. Fix…him. He turned his head—even that seemed like a supreme effort. Starscream. Oh, his processor thought, dully, Starscream would still have the master overrides.

[***]

The bronze jet took in Barricade's hunched, drooping posture, the pink, gummy trail of energon dripping down the chair, spreading onto the floor in a sticky puddle, and stopped. He had promised Skywarp he would find Barricade, understanding implicitly, silently, lovingly, why Skywarp couldn't do it himself, didn't trust himself. Knew how much it took out of Skywarp to even ask. Always, Skywarp. Always. Skywarp needed to be happy. The Trine needed to work together. He had of course agreed.

And now he paused, ramming an emergent request to Repair Bay Beta—the nearest one—before moving forward. The datapad he'd held—a thin ruse at best—he lay on the console. "Barricade," he said, softly. "I have summoned repair bots."

"Don't need 'em," Barricade muttered.

"I regret that I must override your…non-professional opinion. " He stepped in closer, dropping to one knee. "Shall I summon Skywarp as well?"

"No," Barricade said, quickly, more quickly than he'd thought or spoken or processed anything today. Hastily, he added, "Just not…ready for that."

"Barricade. You do not need to explain yourself to me." Starscream's optics caught the scrapes of purple and black paint on the grounder's grille. He traced them idly with one thumb. "He forced you, yes?"

"Didn't force me," Barricade replied.

A soft smile. "Yes. I understand." Starscream remembered his own first time Skywarp had forced him, the awful pain, the struggle and then the complete bliss of surrender. "And you felt him." A question.

"Yes."

"Then you know how he feels about it, and you." Barricade would know those things the same as Starscream did—feel at a level beyond truth or lies Skywarp's aching love, his hatred and fear of what drove him to do it, his terror of rejection, his fear of opening up. "So," Starscream added, "that is not why you are upset." He was aware how ridiculous it would sound to anyone who had not gone through it. Felt Skywarp's struggle with himself. Felt the tremulous love at the bottom of it all, a pure spring feeding something…warped.

"Not that," Barricade agreed. "Love him."

Starscream stroked one of the limp arms, soothingly. "Yes. I know." He waited. To see if Barricade would open to him. To see what his pure spring fed.

"Numb," Barricade said, quietly. "Feel numb and I can't help it. Can't stop it. And…afraid I'll never feel again." He could barely form the words. Starscream recognized the fear—that something more than dignity had been lost, something more than pain had been given. That he was forever to be…half dead, an unfeeling creature, unable to access his own emotions, his own sensation. That he had given up, given over, the very essence of what it meant to be alive…for the sake of staying sane.

"Ohhhhh," Starscream reached under Barricade's arms and lifted him off the chair, tugging the online recharge plug out carefully, laying Barricade gently on the floor. The wound in his side looked worse than it had first appeared, still dripping energon sluggishly. "Barricade," he murmured, "I have been there, yes. And you will feel again. I promise you." He ran gentle hands over the injured side, probing for injury. "Part of your issue right now is that you are energon depleted," he said, briskly, half a lie, but one he knew Barricade needed to cling to, to clutch some dignity over his naked helplessness. "You shall improve when the repairbots arrive." He felt Barricade shudder away from his touch.

"Sorry," the smaller mech said, miserably.

"Unnecessary, still," Starscream said, a hint of teasing in his tone. "You will feel again. It comes back. And Skywarp can be very gentle. Especially after he fears he has…overdone."

Barricade's optics glossed. "Afraid of…bad memories."

Ah. A not unreasonable fear, Starscream thought. "If you like, I shall be your first." He knew what he was offering and why: that he would be Barricade's first interface, able to go as slowly as the smaller mech needed, able to stop entirely, able to understand without guilt. The last thing Barricade would want, he knew, would be to have to worry about Skywarp's reactions as well as his own. Starscream had no feelings to hurt. Not in this.

"N-not ready." One of Barricade's hands clutched at his shoulder.

"Of course not. I should not trust any decision you could make in your condition. But I do make the offer."

Barricade's mouth worked. "Thanks," he managed. Starscream knew what he was feeling, knew with a pang of embarrassment how he must now look to the smaller mech: Air Commander? Weakling. Victim. Starscream hated to be thought of that way. Hated to be unable to cover it up, mask it with arrogance. Some things, very few, however, overrode his compunctions, his self-interest. Such as the Trine.

The repair bots arrived, scrambling over the upper frame of the door, an emergency energon ration and a mass of tools stuck to the back of one as they clambered in from the ceiling and down the walls. The three bots swarmed over Barricade, clicking excitedly. Starscream noticed that they had brought Seeker grade energon. Probably because Starscream had called in the request. Well…Barricade might need that distraction of a little overcharge. It would not hurt.

"Have better things to do than slag around with me," Barricade muttered, wincing as the repairbots got to work, one setting the energon above his intake on a steady drip.

"Do I? I was unaware you could access my duty roster, Barricade," the jet said, wryly.

"Don't know why you care." The mouth set, halfway between a pout and pugnacious.

"I care about my Trine, Barricade. By extension, you." So very simple. On one level.

"Thundercracker hates me."

"You threaten him, his security." The repair bots chittered, wriggling around the wound, one scampering away with a damaged length of energon hose while the other worked to patch the line with a new length.

"He treats you…awfully." A slightly bitter quirk to Starscream's mouth—a blow just a little too close to an unhealed wound.

"Perhaps I deserve it," he managed. "You do not know our history."

"Know enough."

"What matters is that you are Skywarp's." He saw Barricade soften at the phrasing, recognizing another similarity. They had both given themselves over, utterly, to something larger than themselves. Starscream, to his Trine. Barricade, to Skywarp. Starscream could not but respect that. Understand that. Honor that. It was one of the few things Starscream would not dishonor.

Barricade reached one hand up—Starscream took it in his own, larger talons, silver among bronze. "Now," Starscream prodded, gently. "The real disruption."

Barricade's talons clutched. "Soundwave."

"He did not—" Starscream looked half horrified, half enraged.

Barricade shook his head. As if denying what had happened made it go away. "Probed. He knows. He'll use it against Skywarp. Against all of you." Knows about Skywarp. Knows that the Trine is on the verge of collapse. Barricade cringed, expecting to see rejection, distance, hate in Starscream's optics. He had betrayed their secrets. Unknowingly and unable to stop and very, very much against his will, but he had done it nonetheless.

What he was dreading didn't materialize. Instead, Starscream shifted back on his knees, almost…amused. "Let him think so, shall we?" To Barricade's confusion, he said, "It is not the first time, Barricade, that we have had weapons aimed at the Trine. And we would not have survived this long had we not learned, long ago, to turn the weapons against their wielders." He squeezed Barricade's hand, feeling the wrist tire give. "In fact, you may just have handed us what we need." An enemy against which to unite. He hated that it had come at such a price. He could feel Barricade's silent plea—that he explain this to Skywarp, save him from the worst humiliation, his worst fears. Yes. He would do that as well. Soundwave's violation of Barricade might even soften Thundercracker's dislike.

Barricade shook his head. "Worse. He said that Megatron was coming back, too."

Something unreadable raced across Starscream's facial plating. "Indeed." He raised Barricade's hand to his mouth, nipping the talons gently, almost playfully. "Barricade, as you have…seen," a hint of embarrassment, "The Trine is my only strength. I have no other. The Trine stands or falls together. And I…I shall stand or fall with it." He rubbed the back of Barricade's hand against his cheek, slowly accustoming the smaller mech to sensation. Already beginning his retraining. Already getting him used to being touched. He was sick of retreating. Sick of giving in, surrendering, yielding. He was sick with fear, and sick OF fear. He paused. "Stand with me, and we can save us all."

No hesitation, no questioning. He could feel the hope surge from the smaller mech, one that boosted his assurance. There was no certain victory, but Starscream was sick unto death of yielding. He would fight, and die fighting, if necessary, for his Trine. And he knew without asking, Barricade would, too. They were the weakest of the four of them, the most damaged. But suddenly, they felt a common strength, that fed upon each other's, eagerly. "Yes."


	38. Routine

A/N Sorry for delay (if y'all even noticed!) New Fall Schedule and, yeah, still have to work out the bugs.

Angsty fluff here!

The next few rotations fell into a dull, numb routine for Barricade. He had finally gone back to his own cube, which had been set to sterile rights by then—all of the datatracks shiny-new, in nice straight rows on a shelf, the berth replaced, the walls resurfaced. Everything…as though nothing had ever happened.

Except that it had. The newness, even to the smell of uncracked packaging, the tang of new metal, spoke like a constant, niggling whisper.

He recharged alone, hating every klik of it, but fearing more what would happen if he tried to recharge with Skywarp again. If he pushed it. Pushed himself. Not that he had a choice in that—while he was locked into his numb rounds, Skywarp spent, it seemed, every moment with the Trine.

It was over, near as Barricade could figure. Not with a bang, not even a whimper. Just…badly erased, like the damage to his recharge. Like it never happened. Like HE never happened. He'd thought of the promise on Starscream's lips bitterly. Right. Why had he allowed himself to believe that? Nonsense. Foolishness. Silly words meant to comfort him. Kindly meant, but insincere. It was a novel experience that anyone had even tried to comfort him, much less someone with any rank, and he tried to take them as that, and no more.

He curled over his datapad at midcycle, the autoinjector cycling the sludgy energon into his fuel tank as he scrolled down the text on his pad. A manual of Seeker law that Starscream had called up that night, in his work cube. Seeker laws, lore, legends. Weird stuff. Barricade had no idea why the Air Commander insisted he read it, but he did, obediently. Maybe it would help. And the raw wound of reading it—of the glimpses he had into a world, a culture so different than what he knew, having spent his entire activation on warships—he cherished that pain. It was a way of keeping Skywarp close, while feeling every micron of their distance. Now…he had all this free time. Free. Time.

His talons bunched under the table in misery. He had lost the only thing that had mattered. He didn't even know how.

A shadow fell over him.

"Hey," Skywarp said. His voice was so beautiful it pained Barricade. And after not hearing it for solars…it was like a resonance in a deep part of himself. Even one syllable was enough to bring a trembling ache to his spark.

"Hey," he whispered back, as if afraid that speaking too loudly would shatter this illusion. That Skywarp was here, talking to him.

The head tilted, confused, awkward. "Can…can I sit here?"

"Yeah." Barricade scrambled, clearing his datapad, the flaccid energon pouch, out of the way. Skywarp sat down across from him, the table's surface at once too much of a barrier between them and a welcome distance. Barricade felt his optics, his EM field, drink in as much of Skywarp as they could. Primus, he was still so…beautiful. Stupid word to describe something that was armor and weaponry, but it was the closest one, the only one that fit. Barricade longed to touch the satin of his dark armor. Under the table, his talons trembled with suppressed desire. No. Do not trust yourself.

"Are you…doing well?" Skywarp winced, embarrassed by his own clumsiness.

Barricade almost smiled. "Yeah. Miss you." His turn to wince as the sentence slipped out. Their optics met, briefly, both dropped to the side, uncomfortable. "You okay?"

"I…I hurt you, little spike. And I know nothing I can do can," his breath caught, uncharacteristically, "can undo that."

Barricade's talons tangled in the hose from his energon intake. What could he say? That it didn't matter? A lie. It did matter. It had left him numb, shown him everything he could ever have wanted, but in the one way that denied he could ever have it again. His mouth worked, helplessly.

Skywarp leaned over, holding something in his barbed talons. It took Barricade a moment to recognize it as his own spark chamber cover. The one he had given Skywarp back when things seemed so bright. Those days seemed…in the ancient past now, some gold-lit halcyon against which the now stood stark and naked and harsh. "I took this. From your recharge. I wanted to have it with me. And…so I took it from you." Another hitch of the breath. "So if you want it back…."

"No." The word cracked out of Barricade's vocalizer. A rejection of the offer. Returning it as if it wasn't worth anything. Didn't mean anything. Who was Barricade kidding? It wasn't; it didn't. He saw Skywarp's flinch. "I mean, it's yours. If you want. If you don't, you can just…," he shrugged, bitterly. "Throw it out or something."

A flicker of something almost like anger in the exotic, tilted red optics. "I will not throw it out." His voice had an edge: the talons curled around it in a possessive gesture that tore at Barricade's resolve. "It is something beautiful. The most beautiful thing anyone has ever given me. I just…have no right to keep it."

"Why?" Barricade's voice was a thin whisper, like an echo of a ghost, "why did you take it off?"

A bitter smile, the red optics dropping their gaze to the table. "Truth, little spike? Truth is, that night…I'd been fantasizing about sparking with you." He turned his face away, embarrassed. "Stupid, huh?"

"No." Barricade reached a trembling hand out to Skywarp's, still helplessly clutching at the battered disk of metal. "Not stupid."

"It could have been…," Skywarp shook his head, his optics focused over Barricade's shoulder, his mouth tight. "It could have been beautiful. I wanted it to be. I'd guessed your spark color and everything." His optics flickered down to Barricade's for a klik. "I guessed right."

"So did I," Barricade breathed. "And it _was _beautiful." It was dark and painful, but even that had been a kind of beauty to Barricade, seeing that much more of Skywarp. Feeling him, feeling through him. He could not regret it. He could not turn it away.

The mouth tightened, the metal plates grating across each other. "It wasn't. It was…the most disgusting, vile thing I have ever, ever done."

"I love you," Barricade blurted. As if that could erase the pain on Skywarp's face. The black jet sagged, his talons reaching, feebly, for Barricade's.

"Sometimes," the jet said, softly, pinching a line down one of Barricade's talons with two of his own, "that doesn't help."

"Sometimes," Barricade echoed, his jaw set, "it does." He wanted to tell him about Starscream. About their resolve to fight. But he had lost faith in that, lost faith in everything except what he could feel. Not much—his body seemed an echo chamber, unable to carry its own sensation, but he could still FEEL. He closed Skywarp's fingers over the dented disk. "Want you to have it."

"I haven't earned it."

"You have."

"I don't want it to be a reminder of something I ruined."

"It's not." A little more insistent.

The optics turned to him, intent, importuning. "Make me earn it, Barricade. Tell me to do something. What do you want?"

What did Barricade want? Skywarp to be happy. Skywarp, at the very least, not to have this look of taut pain on his broad, elegant face. Barricade was not worth this kind of suffering. But, what did Barricade want. "Recharge with me," he said, his voice soft but fierce. "Not always. I know the Trine," it took concentration to leach the bitterness from the phrase, "will always be above me. But once. Please. Just once." He felt his own frame start to shake with the intensity of his desire. It was a bitter triumph—he could feel. He could.

"Yes," Skywarp said, firm. Resolved. "This recharge cycle?" Barricade recalled Starscream's words—about how meek and gentle Skywarp could be when he knew he'd gone too far.

"Whenever," he said. "Just…when the Trine can let you go."

"This recharge," Skywarp said, firmly. "I don't care what they say."

Barricade wanted to say something, to tell him not to make promises the Trine would make sure he wouldn't keep, but his vocalizer felt…clogged with the rise of hope. Skywarp, with him. Maybe for the last time, but he'd have a last time. He'd have finality.

[***]

Skywarp coded the door at precisely the time Barricade had set him. He hoped it didn't show that he'd been waiting outside for the last five decaklicks fearful of appearing too eager, interrupting the smaller mech. He refused to allow himself any expectations. He just wanted to be with Barricade. Wanted to try to make some sort of clumsy amends. Wanted to at least try. He knew he was awful at words: the scene in the refectory was ample proof of that. Idiot Skywarp. Awkward, clumsy. He hoped he could somehow express, without words, without misunderstanding, how he felt. Not only that he was sorry, but…something more. The surge of golden light he had felt in the hangar had somehow burned inside him, a warm golden fire that had been building all these solars, creating a light and warmth that did not defeat his darkness…but made it less opaque.

He didn't know how to explain it. And he knew if he tried he'd sound stupid. Or crazy. He just wanted Barricade to…know.

The door opened. Barricade stood there, hand on the door frame, looking just as awkward and stiff as he felt. Skywarp couldn't suppress a laugh, which he instantly regretted. Stupid. Crazy.

Barricade tilted his head, curious, all four of the optics intent on Skywarp's face.

"Sorry," Skywarp said. "Just feeling…really dumb." He didn't used to be like this. He remembered being the confident, self-assured one.

Barricade's face shifted into a tentative smile. "Me too."

He dropped to a crouch, trying to get on level with the grounder. "Can I?" He reached one hand toward Barricade. He would do nothing without permission. He had taken too much, thinking that just because Barricade hadn't protested that it was his to take. Barricade stepped into his touch, tilting his cheek into the talons.

"Yes," Barricade breathed, a moment later. "But…not too much." Skywarp sensed a little swirl of fear in the smaller mech's voice. Yes. No less than he deserved. Actually, far less than he truly deserved. What he deserved was for Barricade to hate him. He could not understand how the grounder could not. Skywarp moved inside the door, his arms wrapping carefully around the narrower shoulders, pulling Barricade closer.

"Too much?" he asked, his vocalizer murmuring into Barricade's audio.

"No," Barricade said, his own arms coming up. "Didn't think you'd come."

Skywarp pulled away. "I told you I would."

"I know. Just…would understand if something came up."

Skywarp buried his head in Barricade's shoulder kibble, the familiar smell of the external oil and rubber haunting him with memories of happier times. "I am part of the Trine, yes," he murmured. "But it's not all of who I am."

Barricade muttered something that got muffled in Skywarp's chassis, and he pulled away, tugging Skywarp insistently to the berth. Skywarp forced himself to look around the room—the place he had destroyed in his shallow, stupid, white rage. Something else to make up for. A reminder. Even the new berth, free of the scratches and wear and tiny dings and dents of their intimacy, was a blunt reminder of his transgression. "Don't want to mess things up by talking," Barricade said, sadly, simply. Skywarp's spark ached. He nodded, dumbly. Understanding. Feeling the same fear.

"Me neither."

Another shared, sad smile, recognition of the fragility of what was between them, and Skywarp settled himself on the berth, letting Barricade come to him, letting the smaller mech choose how close and how intimate he wanted to be. Barricade settled next to him, the two of them on their backs, staring at the ceiling, acutely, agonizingly aware of every micron of distance between them, physical and…not physical. Even so, Skywarp could feel their EM fields contact, the boundary already blurring, fuzzing between them, the fields reaching to join and grow, as if their electrical systems were simpler and far, far wiser than they were. He risked looking over at Barricade. The smaller mech was wringing his talons, looking terrified, distressed. Skywarp ached. He'd do anything to relieve that, take that away.

"What would make it better?" he whispered. He knew the answer—that he should fix himself. Not be Skywarp. Be…someone else. Without this darkness. Without this burden.

"'M afraid," Barricade blurted. Stopped. Studied his talons. "Starscream talk to you?"

"Yes," Skywarp said. "Soundwave." And, Skywarp added silently, he told me about you. About your fear. Oh, how well I know that fear. I've felt it from Starscream…so, so many times. The fear of never being able to feel again. It was not a fear he understood, not really, not at a core level. His fear had always been…feeling TOO much. But he could understand the basic terror of one's emotions and a lack of control. "I left you open for that." He risked a touch to Barricade's upper arm, one of the white panels that seemed to catch a glow in the darkness.

"Not your fault." Barricade stiffened, and then wiggled, gently, into the touch. Allowing it. Inviting more.

Skywarp sighed. "So much is my fault."

Barricade rolled to his side, lifting his face to Skywarp's. "Didn't want you here for that."

"What did you want?" Skywarp's voice was thin, afraid.

"Just…can we pretend? Even knowing it's pretend and we're really just fooling ourselves, can we just fool ourselves that it never happened? Just for a bit?" The mouth moved, restlessly. "Sorry. Came out sounding dumb."

Skywarp's optics burned, and a line seemed to sear its way to his spark. Delusion, it was all delusion. But he could not withstand the temptation himself. "No," he said, softly. "Better than I could have put it." He risked another touch, reaching over the smaller mech, the way they used to recharge—Barricade flat under him. "It's what I want, too." Not what I really want, he thought, but the best I can hope for.


	39. Yield

A/N Let's interrupt your plot with some more or less pointless...um...smexiness.

"I'm not sure about this," Thundercracker said. He let Starscream pull him onto the berth, bracing himself on his arms for an instant to survey his Trine mate, laid out beneath him. Oh, Starscream was every bit as beautiful as ever, and the subtle sheen of his metallic finish and the darker play off his inscribed markings gave him a strange, alluring luster, matched by the inviting glow in his optics.

"You said," Starscream murmured, drawing his long talons gently up the insides of Thundercracker's forearms, pausing briefly to tickle at the exposed elbow cabling, "we should make Skywarp happy. Letting him recharge with Barricade does no harm to the Trine."

"No harm?" Thundercracker let himself lower onto Starscream's chassis, pausing to nip at Starscream's mouth.

A return nip. "Giving in does less harm than fighting him on this, Thundercracker." Starscream's voice was thick with experience. He knew the power of submission, of the price sometimes paid for peace. His hands travelled over the folded blue wings, coaxing Thundercracker down on top of him. "I shall show you," he breathed.

Thundercracker's optics flickered closed, as he arched into the delicate touches along his wing flaps, the sensitive mounts of his engines. So different from how Skywarp touched him. Skywarp was rough, his talons harsh, as likely to hurt as to caress. Not that Thundercracker didn't like that. That was Skywarp's way, as much as this was Starscream's. They were his Trine. He loved them both. He loved the fact that he could have them both. His. So different, so special. So…needing him. Wanting…him. As right now Starscream did. "Do you love me?" he asked, softly, optics still closed, audio tuned keenly for the soft tenor of his Trine mate's voice.

"Yes, oh yes," Starscream said, his long hands joining around the bases of Thundercracker's engines, arching his spinal cabling up, bringing their armor in contact. "I love you, Thundercracker."

Thundercracker purred, the vibration carrying through his engines. He loved how eagerly Starscream admitted it. He had to pull these confessions—which he so, so desperately needed to hear—out of Skywarp. Always a battle with Skywarp. Everything was. But one worth fighting. For the Trine. For Starscream. And for Skywarp himself.

And…a little bit, Thundercracker admitted, for himself. The Trine meant everything to him. And he had put so much time and effort keeping it together after Skyfire's death, had had to take control before the entire Trine self-destructed and he'd've been left alone. Alone. He hated being alone. Even surrounded by other aerials on his orbital station, he had been alone. No other Seekers. No one who knew him, understood him as well as Starscream or Skywarp. They were his; he was theirs. He wished there was a way they could always be together. If only...

No. Dangerous thought. Thoughts like that would send Starscream into a deathspiral of guilt and self-blame. They had had enough of that, already. But, still. If only Skyfire hadn't died. They would have been a functioning quaterne—unspeakably rare. A quaterne was a law unto itself, answering to no one but itself. Never separated: not in duty, not in death. They could have had that. They had spent…their entire youths imagining that would be the case, considering themselves special, different, closer than others. Irony struck them down for their hubris.

He shoved bitterness aside. That got them nowhere: that got Starscream to drown in despair; Skywarp to fly into rages of rejection. It tempted him, as well. But they needed him to be strong. To be able to push it aside. He did now, in favor, in blessed, glorious, thankful favor of his Trine mate underneath him, eager and tender and adoring. Despair versus love? No contest.

"You know I love you, too, right?" he breathed, bending over Starscream's audio, feeling his own ex-vents like soft caresses of air against the other's cheeks. His glossa flicked over the chevrons in Starscream's jaw. Starscream turned his face away, inviting exploration into his exposed throat.

"Yes," Starscream breathed. "I know." He shifted his thighs, the metal plates sliding over Thundercracker's, sending trembling waves of sensation over Thundercracker's net. The blue jet sighed into Starscream's throat. While he loved Skywarp's roughness, he loved also, in equal measure, Starscream's gentle submission.

He traced his own hands down the bronze body, the backs of his talons skimming over the plates. Starscream shivered beneath him, the tattoos glistening in the light like dark water. Thundercracker bent down to taste one, probing into the healed cut with his glossa, tasting the familiar tang of Starscream's armor, the light waxiness of his protectant polish, and then the dark bittersweet taste of the dermal nanites. Starscream made a tight, eager sound, his hands clutching at Thundercracker's shoulders. Thundercracker laughed, softly, feeling the nanites ripple under the exvent.

"These are beautiful," he said, raising his optics to meet Starscream's. He could feel the surge of emotion from his Trine mate—approval, approbation thrilled Starscream like nothing else.

Starscream reached up, pulling Thundercracker into an almost feverishly intense kiss, his body snaking around Thundercracker's. So much raw desire….

Thundercracker pulled away gently, breaking the kiss into a series of small playful licks at Starscream's mouth, his glossa. "I want you," he said, knowing that the sentiment was…obvious. But knowing that those words, more than any other, enflamed his Trine mate. Starscream lived to be wanted, to be desired. He needed it, had needed it since the bonding that had saved him after Skyfire's death.

Starscream made a sound, almost a whine, in his throat, his optics blazing with gratification. He shifted his thighs farther apart in open invitation. Thundercracker leaned in for one last, teasing lick at Starscream's mouth, then pushed himself back, his slick armor sliding over Starscream's, the swell of his cockpit sliding alongside Starscream's, and then lower, between his thighs, as Thundercracker pushed his way down, pausing to kiss and admire every edge of armor on his way down.

His fingers teased between the doubled plates of Starscream's pelvic armor. The bronze body quivered at his touch. He felt a surge of power and pleasure combined, knowing that Starscream's arousal was entirely his to control, to raise, to push to the limits. Oh, he could hurt Starscream, he had that power as well. But right now, the act of power was in refusing to do that, and choosing instead to bring only pure, delicate ecstasy to his Trine mate.

He bent and nipped one of the plates, just the lightest pinch, but enough to elicit a gasp from Starscream's vocalizer. The thigh servos tensed. He licked the pinched plate, spreading the sensation in a long glossal swirl, feeling the tension surge and crest and melt under him. Oh, Starscream was so good for this. Made for this, almost.

He wished, vainly, foolishly, that he could do this with Skywarp. Feel the black jet yield and shiver and whimper at his touch. But no, that was a darker thing, beautiful in its own right. And why wish for what you do not have when what you have in front of you is so…perfect.

He dropped lower down, clicking the panel open with a deft thumb, feeling the almost imperceptible anticipation ripple through Starscream's body. Beautiful. So beautiful. "Which do you…?" he asked, knowing already Starscream's response. A familiar exchange, but like the steps of a dance, no less enticing for all the familiarity. Instead, an appreciation for perfect form, for the opportunities for variations in timbre. Something only someone else intimately familiar with the exchange could appreciate—subtle, bonding.

"Whichever pleases you more," Starscream murmured, his long fingers stroking at the part of Thundercracker's shoulder he could reach.

Thundercracker smiled. So familiar. So beloved. "I do not want to choose," he said, his tone teasing. Starscream obediently clicked both of his panels open. Oh, this openness, submission was so heady for Thundercracker. Exactly what he wanted, without having to fight for it. He didn't even, really, have to ask for it. Starscream's tender submission was a beautiful thing. He felt…immensely protective of it. A treasure for his taking. And Skywarp's. The Trine's treasured yielding, just as Skywarp was the Trine's most valuable and precious dominance.

Thundercracker took the head of the spike in his mouth, tasting the sweetness of the lubricant, feeling the spike's warmth in his mouth, the hard pressure, the exquisite contours of the fine metal plates. Starscream whimpered, rapt with desire. Thundercracker slid his hand down the length of the spike, gathering lubricant on his talons, before pushing one, then two, slowly into Starscream's valve.

Starscream moaned, his hands clutching helplessly at his own thighs. Thundercracker surged with desire, feeling the valve's mechanism spiral down against his talons. He crooked one finger, prodding at a node, exulting at Starscream's desperate twitch. Oh, so beautiful.

He began licking at the spike, taking more and more of its length into his mouth with each lick, inching himself down the spike, in the same rhythm as he worked the finger in the valve. Starscream thrashed wildly on the berth, one foot somehow coming to rest on Thundercracker's shoulder. Not trying to push him away, just clutching at him, the bronze toes gripping into Thundercracker's folded wing.

He paused, turning to pull the foot off his wing for a moment, licking his way down the length of one of the toes, sucking it into his mouth, wrapping his glossa around it before moving to nibble his way up the foot, the ankle. "Love your toes," he murmured, pushing the vibration of his voice into the gyroscopic stabilizer. Starscream squirmed, uncomfortable with such naked praise, even as much as his spark drank it in.

Thundercracker replaced the foot on his shoulder, grinning as the toes flexed before locking down into his armor again. He vented his breath along the spike before taking it in his mouth again, feeling the lubricant chilled by his breath, and then warmed by his mouth, his teasing glossa. He rotated his wrist, his talons revolving in the valve, the metal shifting around the valve's sensitized lining. Starscream squeaked, his body stiffening to the point of vibrating. Oh, so easy to please. So…gratifying to pleasure.

"Please," Starscream gasped. "Too much!" His body shuddered, the spike leaking more lubricant, the valve shifting restlessly, trying to adjust against the changing contours of the fingers.

Thundercracker smirked around the spike. Too much. No such thing. "For me," he said, lifting his head for a klik, before diving back onto the spike, his own sensornet shimmering with desire. Do it for me, he thought, take this pleasure, which you think is too much, more than you deserve. Let me see it. Let me feel it. Let me do this to you. For you.

For me.

Starscream arched up, talons screeching against the metal of the berth, a thin cry escaping his vocalizer. Thundercracker could feel the pulse in Starscream's EM field an instant before the overloads ripped through his systems, the wash of transfluid flooding Thundercracker's mouth at the same time that the valve clutched at his fingers, sending a tingling wash of sparks against Thundercracker's talons.

Starscream shuddered in hard waves of sensation. Thundercracker untangled himself, sliding his fingers from the valve, clambering up Starscream's still shuddering frame, letting the bronze jet pull him into a desperate kiss, shivering himself as his Trine mate's glossa investigated his mouth, searching out the traces of his transfluid, whimpers echoing gently between them.

Starscream chased the kiss as Thundercracker lifted his head away. "Don't you want to…?" he asked, his optics worried.

Thundercracker shook his head. "Not right now. Maybe later. Wanted to enjoy…you." He pulled Starscream into an embrace, rolling to his side. Starscream's thighs interlaced in his, pulling their lower torsos together. He could feel the slickness of Starscream's lubricant slide against his pelvic plates with a shiver of desire. Not now. Maybe later he told himself.

Starscream buried his face in Thundercracker's throat for a long moment, as if breathing him in. He lifted his head, almost sadly, afraid he was breaking a spell. "Soundwave will try something," he said, softly. "He has been after me for as long as I can remember."

"An attempt on you is an attempt on the Trine," Thundercracker said, pulling away just far enough to be able to cup Starscream's face comfortingly with one hand. Starscream nodded. "We can handle whatever he can try, Starscream. We are strong. We will be with you."

"Thank you," Starscream whispered, the words shivering from restrained fear. "I need you so much. Both of you."

"You have us." Thundercracker tightened his arm around Starscream's waist. "Against anything."


	40. Return of the Repressed

Dubcon, noncon, humiliation. In other words: Megatron

"This is…perfect," Megatron purred, after Soundwave finished speaking. His chance, finally, to take down the Trine. He had kept them separated, easily, for ages. Needs of the war, needs of their specific talents were compelling enough to scatter the Trine across the galaxies of the war. But this was…handed to him, as though Primus himself had brought them together, under his optic, to be brought under his heel as well. Starscream's insubordinations would end. He could take down the Investigator General's branch by destroying one of its better agents. Three broken Seekers, open to his commands. Perhaps…perhaps he would order them to fight themselves to the death. Perhaps he would kill one while the others watched. Oh. Too many possibilities. Dizzying. He could hardly wait.

"Let us call them together," he smirked. "Your information is accurate—Skywarp has interfaced, has sparked with Barricade?" He could already taste the Trine's humiliation. A Trine that already was primed to collapse. Fighting amongst the members over this. So simple, such a small fulcrum against which to lean to bring the Trine down.

"Absolute confirmation," Soundwave said, blandly. A soft rebuke—that Megatron should question anything he asserted. Megatron ignored that…for now. "On top of other…egregious acts of unprofessional behavior while on the course of his investiga—" Megatron cut him short with a swipe of his hand.

"Such accusations are tedious to prove," he said. "This…fast and certain. A sword, Soundwave, is always preferable to a virus."

Soundwave opened his mandibles to protest, but thought better and bit down on his words, saying simply, "Yes, my Lord."

"See them brought together in my chamber after shiftcycle. All of them." It was hard not to chortle. "And if you like, you may stay to watch as well. This, I feel, deserves an audience." But a select one.

[***]

Barricade felt his tanks roil in worry as he stared at the summons on his display. He'd been staring at it the whole second half of his work shift. So soon? He felt…unprepared. He didn't even know what he was unprepared for. Megatron wanted to see him, after shiftcycle. This had never happened before. And he had just, maybe, kind of pulled things together with Skywarp: they'd spent the recharge cycle wrapped together. He'd woken up with his fingers locked down into Skywarp's chest armor, the larger mech still blissfully asleep. Barricade had lain there for a decaklik drinking in the soothing sound of the recharging engines, the warm fuzz of their EM field.

He had wanted to forget, and for a while, he had. And even when he had remembered all that had come between them, it had felt…insubstantial. A fog blocking the view, but nothing more, nothing, in a way, real. What was real was the large body, the soft hum of the engines, the ebb and flow of the vent cyclers, the comforting weight on his frame. What was real was Skywarp.

He hadn't dared to move, fearful of waking the jet, so he'd unlocked his fingers, slowly, carefully, and lay until he felt Skywarp start to stir on top of him.

"Hey, little spike," Skywarp said, blearily.

Barricade gave a tentative grin. Skywarp did not online quickly after recharge and it had become strangely endearing to him. It probably made sense, with so many systems to online, but still, he didn't want it explained. He liked it as Skywarp.

"Recharge well?"

"Yeah." Skywarp leaned over for a moment, pressing Barricade against him before pushing away, suddenly, as if afraid he'd gone too far. "You?"

"Fine." Barricade risked a little wriggle, feeling the cockpit shift under his chassis. Skywarp gave a smile, which faded quickly.

"Have any bad purges? Because of me?" Barricade followed Skywarp's gaze. Oh. Lying like this, their spark chambers were separated only by their unretracted armor.

"No," Barricade said.

"Good, because, you know, I was thinking maybe you'd feel trapped with me lying on top of you and you woke up and couldn't get out and…I should shut up, shouldn't I?"

Barricade couldn't explain how or why he found the black jet's weight anything but confining or trapping. It felt safe. Even last recharge. He smiled back, waiting until Skywarp's smile blossomed again.

And things had seemed…all right. On the road to it, at any rate. But this summons…scared him. Like a premonition, a wet slap of fog, telling him that things will change for the worse.

[***}

Starscream loitered outside the command chamber. He rushed to Barricade as he approached, dropping swiftly to one knee. "There is no time, Barricade. Two things. One, give me your private freq."

Barricade balked. The only mech who had that was Skywarp and….

"Do not make me issue that as an order," Starscream snapped. "We have not much time. If they even see us together, it could ruin everything." Ruin everything what? Barricade was…confused. Still he rattled off the freq.

Starscream nodded briskly, logging the string of numbers. "Secondly and this is of vital importance. Whatever Megatron orders you to do, do it. Do not question, do not hesitate. Do not protest. You must obey him. Do you understand?" His optics blazed with intensity. Barricade nodded, dumbly. "Your devotion to Skywarp will not be served by defying Megatron here." Starscream stood up, murmuring, "I rely on you: the Trine relies on you. Please obey."

Barricade could only feel a swell of worry. This was too ominous. He couldn't even form a question, standing there blank and stupid as the door whooshed open and Starscream strode inside, his movements already so different from what Barricade knew in private—a public gait, arrogance radiating from every movement. Before the door closed behind him, Barricade saw Starscream pause, his head revolving slowly, to take in the room. Deliberately provoking.

Trust him. Trust him as he trusts you. Barricade waited another few decakliks before he approached the door himself, enough that it was plausible that he had just arrived. He cringed—he only wished he were acting, and half so well as Starscream—as he realized he was the last to arrive, and not the only one. Starscream leaned insolently against one wall, arms folded, managing somehow to look ineffably bored, already. Skywarp looked agitated, his nasal ridge furrowing in concern as he saw Barricade. Apparently he didn't know Barricade had been summoned, too. Thundercracker looked calm, but an angry sort of calm, one that is studying a situation for tactical advantage, coiling for attack. Barricade and he were…less than thrilled to see each other.

Even worse: Soundwave stood, triumphantly, by Megatron's shoulder, one hand resting possessively on the back of Megatron's command chair, his panels riffling with self-importance. All of Starscream's mysterious and veiled warnings suddenly took a very ugly kind of shape.

Barricade had sat in many staff meetings where Megatron presided, but he couldn't recall ever having this kind of focus, this kind of attention directed at him. He did not like it.

"Barricade," Megatron acknowledged him with a nod. "Now that we are all here. It has come to my attention," behind him, Soundwave puffed officiously, "that the IG agent in charge of this investigation has…shall we call them integrity issues?" Skywarp bristled. Thundercracker stiffened. Only Starscream seemed calm, his position never shifting from against the wall.

Megatron waited for more reaction. None of them obliged. Barricade, Starscream's words echoing in his cortex, said nothing. Do not protest. Do not disobey. They were counting on him.

Megatron tilted his head at the lack of response. "Unsurprised, are you? Surely, Thundercracker," he addressed the blue jet with an offensive intimacy, "you realize that Skywarp has been involving himself with ground-frames." He smirked. He knew about Thundercracker's prejudice, Barricade thought, then…oh, of course. From when Soundwave probed me. He forced himself still, not to shudder at the memory. Not to bow at his own helplessness, how he had handed a weapon to the enemy.

"I am aware of that," Thundercracker said, stiffly. "It is a Trine matter."

"Trines cede authority to a military commander," Megatron retorted, smoothly. He had prepared for that objection. He seemed, Barricade thought, to be enjoying this. Thundercracker glared at Megatron, subsiding. Something echoed in Barricade's processor. Yes. He'd read that. In those files Starscream had downloaded for him. He risked a look over. Starscream met his optics for a klik, then turned his face away, tapping one talon on his elbow. Almost an acknowledgement. "Furthermore," Megatron said, tilting back in his chair, cocking his hips forward, "I understand, Starscream, that you have been acting above your station."

Starscream lazily rolled his head toward Megatron. Deliberately provoking. Barricade felt a worm of fear flip in his tank. Why would Starscream demand his obedience and then act so insolently himself?

To draw the attention to himself. To bring it on himself, whatever Megatron has planned. The answer came to him in icy clarity.

"Have I?" Starscream drawled. "Examples?"

Soundwave fluttered his panels in irritation. "Now, for example," he snapped.

"Now?" Starscream elbowed himself off the wall. "I'm merely asking for clarification. Though it's nice that my accuser confronts me," he paused, his optics flickering lazily at the command chair, and Megatron's bulk, between them, "so directly." Thundercracker shifted uncomfortably behind Barricade. He could swear he heard a soft voice whisper 'shut up,' warningly at Starscream.

"If this is the disrespect to which Soundwave has been subject in my absence," Megatron said, coldly, "It has gone far enough. Barricade, step forward."

Barricade complied, casting nervous, almost apologetic looks back at Skywarp. Who refused to meet his optics. Everything, gone. They'd woken up this morning with things maybe on the road to healing, and this was tearing a new wound. He said nothing—no one had asked him to say anything.

"You need some lessons in humility, Starscream," Megatron said, toying with his own greenish talons, idly. His optics, however, were keen on the bronze jet, looking for resistance. Starscream tilted his head, optics drooping lazily. Deliberately not deigning to respond. Barricade felt awash with nerves. Starscream should really do something. Back down. Placate. Something. He felt Megatron's optics hone on him—it felt like the one time he'd had a magnetic target lock nail him. An eerie sort of pulling at his armor. The optics flicked back to Starscream. "Suck his spike."

Starscream's bark of laughter drowned out Skywarp's cry of protest, Thundercracker's enraged hiss. "No."

Soundwave's optics glowed with a dark delight. "Insubordination," he said, mildly. "Refusal to obey a direct order."

"A direct order…to fellate a grounder." He let the absurdity of the 'order' fill the room.

Barricade tensed. What was Starscream doing?

The cold optics of the Decepticon leader revolved to Barricade. "Apparently you think you're worthy of spiking a Seeker. Prove it."

"I—" The warning Starscream had given him in the hall cut him short. He looked back, terrified, at Skywarp and Thundercracker. Skywarp's optics were unreadable. Worry and anger and…something else. Betrayal? He turned unsteadily toward Starscream. His private freq clicked on.

/Good. Obey./

/I…how?/

/Hit me./

/What?/

/Strike me, Barricade. I shall go down./

/But…Skywarp…?/he could hear a helpless bleat in his voice over the comm. He edged forward. Starscream obliged by dropping into a crouch, as though waiting for an assault.

/Throw out your spoke weapon,/ Starscream said. /Do not worry about Skywarp./

/He knows?/ Barricade felt a rush of relief. /He knows that you and I are…?/

/No. He cannot know. Or else his reaction would be…inauthentic. Strike me, NOW./

Barricade couldn't recover from the psychological shock before Starscream swung a long talon over his head. He ducked, barely, hearing the claws whistle as they sliced the air.

/Strike me!/

Barricade threw out his spoke weapon and flung it at Starscream. The jet danced back, but not fast enough—only Barricade noticed how he kept the one leg forward, almost drawing the blades to it. Sparks flew, metal sang. Starscream shrieked, and dropped to his opposite knee, clutching at the injury.

/Continue,/Starscream said. /Grab my helm./

/I…but…,/ Barricade's optics flicked to Skywarp and Thundercracker. Thundercracker was shaking with rage; Skywarp looked ill. As ill as Barricade felt.

/Do it!/

Barricade's talons grabbed for the helm. Starscream's head went to Barricade's interface hatch. Barricade tried to step away no no no no no but Starscream had slapped one of his hands, as if to stabilize himself, behind Barricade's ankle. To any observer, it looked as though Barricade had jerked Starscream's head there authoritatively.

/Open the panel./

Barricade complied, knowing the worry and terror showed on his face. He heard a sucked-in vent from Megatron. Starscream's free hand came up, clamping Barricade's to the back of his head, pushing himself toward the panel. /Say something./

/Like what?/

/Am I going to have to do everything?/ A hint of frustration in the voice. Barricade felt a glossa trace the rim of his spike cover. Despite himself, his sensor net fired on. /Say 'do it.'/

"Do it." Barricade heard his voice squeak. Thundercracker snarled, held back by Skywarp. Did Skywarp know what was going on? Had he figured it out? Please, Barricade thought, please may he know I wouldn't actually….

Starscream made a whimpering sound as the spike released itself. He turned his face to one side, the spike sliding along his cheek chevrons. "Megatron, this is a travesty," he said. He tightened his grip on Barricade's hand on the back of his head.

"The only travesty," Megatron said, "is how long I have let you go unchecked." He nodded at Barricade. "Continue."

Barricade hated this. Everything about it. Skywarp. Thundercracker. The other witnesses. Starscream, kneeling between his feet. He hated most of all the feeling of his systems responding as he felt the mouth close over his spike. /I'm sorry,/ he whimpered, desperately.

/Do not apologize, Barricade. And,/a startling flash of the jet's normal humor, /perhaps you might try to enjoy this? I have heard I am beyond competent./ He felt the glossa tickle almost playfully along his spike. How could Starscream be so…teasing? How could he not be disgusted, humiliated?

A moan tore from Barricade's mouth, involuntary, as the jet—who was better than even he unmodestly allowed—sent a delicious cascade of signals through his sensornet. Barricade felt his head tip back, optics drifting closed, shutting out Megatron's smirk, Soundwave's triumphant sneer, Skywarp's…unreadable response. Only the sensations from his spike shimmered through his systems, as though he were a helpless instrument in Starscream's handling. Oh Primus, it felt good, and the resistance, the quelling of desire from his too-acute awareness of witnesses built the overload slowly, but powerfully, until it ripped from his sensornet with a cry almost of pain. He felt Starscream swallow the rush of transfluid in neat little gestures, his glossa licking along the spike daintily.

Starscream pushed away, defiantly, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand, the barbs scratching across his faceplates. "Abased enough for you?" he sneered at Megatron. Barricade's hand dropped to his side, his body quivering from the overload, and the sudden renewed awareness of his audience. Skywarp. Oh. He couldn't even bring himself to imagine Thundercracker's response. And Megatron's was…too vile. He hated himself. Hated his interface systems. Hated that he had obeyed Starscream. Did the jet really have his interests at all at heart? Why, how had he ever trusted him?

But…why would Starscream subject himself to this humiliation, then? Nothing made sense. None of this made any sense.

"No." Megatron's voice held an icy amusement. "I think the grounder should take you."

"No," Barricade breathed, stepping back. He couldn't. He couldn't.

/Barricade./ Starscream's voice was warning.

"Amusing compunction, Barricade," Megatron said. "It was more of an order than a speculation."

Barricade froze again. This. No. He couldn't. His optics flew to Skywarp. Megatron chuckled. Soundwave sneered, "Oh, little grounder, does it bother you that the IG agent will watch you spike someone not him?"

Yes, Barricade thought. He almost melted with relief as he heard another ping on his private freq. /Starscream telling you what to do?/

/Yes. Sorry. Hate it./

/Why?/

/Ruining everything. Want you./

/Listen to him. He knows how to handle Megatron./Skywarp sounded a bit doubtful, but…it was what Barricade needed to hear.

/Okay./

/Defy him and he can offline you,/ Skywarp added, softly. Like Barricade didn't have enough to worry about. /Survive. Stay safe./ The baritone voice melted something icy and hard in Barricade's systems. Oh. Skywarp.

"Take him," Megatron said, simply.

Barricade blinked an apology, and pushed, gently, at Starscream's shoulder. The jet made a show of falling back on his aft, legs spread.

/Yes,/ Starscream said. /Excellent. Continue./

/Don't want to./

/Neither of us have any choice in this, Barricade. Obey and we can overmaster him yet. Make it a game and it will not injure you./

Barricade stepped closer. "Retract," he ordered. Or tried to. His voice crackled at the command—the ludicrous discomfort of it all. Starscream retracted his valve cover, dropping back to his elbows. It was a demented flashback to that time in the refectory, Starscream goading him onward. He dropped to his knees between the bronze thighs, his spike only half pressurized. He pushed back against the jet's bronze chassis, leaning forward onto him, his spike slipping into the valve. He gasped as the valve cinched down on the spike, Starscream smiling goadingly at him. "This has gone far enough!" Starscream protested, one hand feebly pushing at Barricade's shoulder tire.

"Take him." Megatron repeated.

Starscream's optics narrowed into lines of hate. /Play with me this way, if the other was not to your liking./

/Isn't play./

/Immaterial./ Aloud, Starscream sneered, "Let us see what you have. I suspect it is not worth my time."

Megatron leaned back, enjoying.

Barricade frowned, but obediently snapped his talons around a rib strut. "Shut up," he said. He rocked his hips into the jet's, his body remembering other times, other places. He felt his spike respond to memory with a wash of lubricant. /Relax, little spike,/ Skywarp's voice filled his audio like honey. /If it helps, I think you're so fraggin' hot right now./

Barricade quivered.

/Skywarp,/ Starscream said. /You are distracting Barricade./

/I am getting him motivated./

/He does not need assistance in that department./

/Too bad. He has it. Now, Barricade./ The voice grew sultry. /Will you listen to me?/

/Yes./ No hesitation. He was Skywarp's.

/Push him down, harder. Take your right hand and dig the talons into the elbow joint./ Barricade refused to question. He obeyed. Starscream gave an unfeigned gasp, the valve clutching at Barricade's spike as the sensation of pain ricocheted through his systems. Starscream splayed on the floor, quivering. /Spike him. Hard on the in-thrust, a little slower pulling out./

Barricade complied, and Starscream began writhing, helplessly, incoherent little whimpers coming from his vocalizer, his long talons giving light, frantic pinches to Barricade's arm tires. Barricade felt his spike leap to full pressure, lubricant oozing along the length, the warm hot sounds of Starscream's whimpers inflaming him almost as much as Skywarp's deep, sensual voice.

/Good,/ Skywarp breathed. /Pull his thigh up over your shoulder—it'll help hide you from Megatron./

Starscream obediently lifted the thigh, letting Barricade scoop it easily off the ground, his talons tracing into the strange pools of the jet's markings. Starscream shivered, moaning, his spine undulating on the floor. Megatron's optics were ablaze, drinking in both the spectacle of the jet's wanton arousal and the humiliation he thought he was wreaking.

"Please," Starscream begged, thinly, his optics wild, his hips surging up to meet Barricade's begging for the spike to take him, his armor sleek over Barricade's thinner plates. Barricade bent lower over the jet's writhing body, his one hand tangling in the jet's struts, his mouth eager on the framing of the cockpit. "Please! I can't—" whatever Starscream was going to say, whether real or feigned, got swallowed up in the sudden thrash of his frame, his vocalizer dropping to staticky keening, the valve trembling against the spike.

Barricade felt the overload almost ambush him, a high cry torn from his vocalizer, as he flung his body forward onto the bronze armor, trembling as his sensornet blazed up bright and hot, leaving him momentarily stunned, deaf, blind, closed off to everything other than the electrical storm raging across his net.

/So hot, little spike,/ Skywarp murmured. /I missed watching you overload./ Barricade trembled deliciously just at the words, and what they implied. He melted against the bronze jet, himself shivering in a wash of sensation, until he felt the frame tense. He was shoved back, roughly, his spike yanked from the valve as he fell back and saw Megatron's hands close around Starscream's helm, hauling the jet over onto his knees, thrusting his own spike into Starscream's mouth.

"You enjoyed that too much," Megatron snarled. "You shall be punished at my hands." Behind him, Soundwave glittered, riveted.

/Part of the plan? Tell me this is part of the plan./ Skywarp's voice was tense, worried. Barricade shook his head. He didn't know.

Starscream was silent on comm, as Megatron thrust his spike into the jet's mouth. This wasn't like with Barricade, where Starscream had had playful control, teasing and working at the spike's nodes. This had no skill, no delicacy about it—simply power, domination, more than sensation, as Megatron drove the jet's face hard enough against his spike housing for the metal to ding. Barricade bit down on a sympathetic whimper. He'd…had this happen to him, had this done to him, felt a spike intruding in his mouth, bruising his glossa, ramming against the back of his intake, forcing him to gag, to whine helplessly. He curled up, without even knowing what he was doing, into a helpless, trapped ball, ensnared by his memories.

Megatron roared, and jerked his hips back, tearing the spike from the jet's mouth, the transfluid spraying all over the jet's helpless, surprised face. Barricade squeaked in horror and shame, helpless. Trapped. Useless. All over again. What had Starscream's plan been? Not this. It could not have called for this. Nothing about the look of horror and humiliation on the jet's face said it was part of a plan, part of an act, and the fact he kept his comm shut firmly down filled Barricade with dread.

"Polluted," Megatron said, as if by explanation. "Disgusting whore."

From behind Barricade, a trembling roar built and Barricade barely had instinct to duck aside, flattening himself to the floor, as a blue blur rocketed overhead, launching itself, intent to kill, at Megatron. For long moments there was a fierce struggle—Barricade could not see, coward that he was, flat against the floor and shaking, but when he dared look up, Thundercracker's throat was gripped in Megatron's greenish claw.

"An assault on your ranking commander, how very novel," Megatron said, forcing his tone, though the deep gasps of venting told that the struggle had been harder than he wished to admit. "Your loyalty, Thundercracker, has always been…problematic. And now you have oh so conveniently overstepped. The penalty is, of course, deactivation."

Barricade looked, panicked, toward Starscream. This couldn't be the plan. Couldn't be how the jet had envisioned it going down. He heard a horrified suck of air behind him, Skywarp. And Starscream, in front of him, face dripping with silver and mortification, simply sagged to the floor, defeated.


	41. Solution

Thundercracker was in the brig, awaiting execution. Strange how a few cycles ago that news would have elicited only a shrug or a 'couldn't happen to a more deserving' from Barricade. But sitting in Starscream's recharge, after he and Skywarp had managed to drag the bronze Seeker from Megatron's command chamber, weeping and weak, watching Skywarp war with woe and rage, his perspective had changed. Thundercracker's death would destroy Starscream, shatter the Trine. It would hurt Skywarp.

"What the frag did you think you were doing?" Skywarp snarled. Starscream quailed back against the berth. "I thought you had it under control! I supported you!" Barricade remembered Skywarp's voice, sultry in his audio, pushing him, arousing him, consoling him.

Starscream hunched, miserably. "It was not supposed to go that far," he said, his voice small. Barricade pushed the jet's hands gently aside, reaching to swab his face with a damp cleansing rag.

"Well, I'd hope not!"

"Not helping," Barricade said, quietly. He felt…more than a little awful himself. He'd been part of it.

"It was-," a strange hiccup, "it was only supposed to go as far as Barricade. Megatron just watches. He's never…intruded before." Starscream shivered, his hands bunching into helpless, but vicious looking, fists.

"He's done this before? Made you interface with others?" Skywarp was pacing, discontent. On the edge of…something dark. Barricade could feel Skywarp's despair—that his own treatment of his Trine mate had led him to that, left him open for that. His guilt roiled off him like a palpable field.

Starscream nodded. "That is why I thought it was safe. He would have his revenge, and…and as a reward for his obedience Barricade would be unpunished and you would only have to leave the Nemesis, hand over this investigation to someone else. It was perfect."

"Except it wasn't." Skywarp had the decency to wince.

"Not helping," Barricade repeated, more firmly. Starscream had pushed him aside, whimpering into his hands.

"Thundercracker is going to die and it is all my fault," Starscream breathed. "All of it. Overconfidence. Hubris. Again." His body shook as if he were freezing, arms hugging around his body pitifully. Barricade patted the jet's shoulder, helplessly, the filthy rag dangling from his talons.

"Not your fault," Skywarp said, gruffly. He sat down on the berth next to Starscream, placing an awkward, apologetic arm over the bronze shoulders. "It's not your fault, Starscream." Barricade stood, helpless, useless, in-the-way, feeling like he was an intruder as Starscream turned into Skywarp's touch, away from Barricade's.

"He's dead and it's my fault," Starscream mumbled vaguely into Skywarp's throat, his voice papery. "My fault."

"He's not dead yet. Thundercracker is not dead," Skywarp asserted. His optics met Barricade's with a kind of embarrassed worry.

"Skyfire!" Starscream said, his body going impossibly rigid before collapsing, wracked with sobs. Skywarp pulled his bronze Trine mate firmly against him, murmuring comforting useless empty phrases in his audio, but…Starscream was gone, somewhere else, mumbling only "Skyfire, Skyfire," over and over again like a mantra, like a charm summoning up a storm.

Barricade, aching to help, patted the jet's thigh awkwardly. Starscream swooped down, crushing him against his rib struts. "You are not Skyfire," he said, distracted, almost as if surprised. "Skyfire is not here."

"He's not here," Skywarp muttered. "Come back, Starscream. Please. Don't go away now. Here. Please. We need you." His talons were earnest on Starscream's armor, stroking him comfortingly, trying to ground him by touch to the here and now. His anger, evaporated.

"If only Skyfire were here," Starscream said, his voice rippling with delirium. "Quaternions."

Skywarp's face looked stricken. "Yes. I know."

"If we were still a Quaterne…."

"Hush, Starscream." Skywarp began rocking the bronze body, soothingly. "I know. We wouldn't have to listen to anyone. It's not your fault. We didn't lose that because of you."

"But Thundercracker…is my fault."

Skywarp's face was taut, regretting the harsh words he'd said earlier. "No. Not your fault, Starscream. No. He acted of his own free will. No one blames you."

"I do," Starscream breathed, miserably.

"Well then," Skywarp said, his voice strained with the effort to make it sound light, "you are wrong. Now." He reached for the rag in Barricade's hand, and began daubing Starscream's face with it. "Think, Starscream, of what Skyfire would think of you now. He knows you are stronger than this." Skywarp's agonized optics met Barricade's over the bronze shoulder. He hated being seen like this. Hated Starscream being this broken. He hadn't realized Barricade had already seen it.

"I am not strong," Starscream whispered. "Not without the Trine."

Barricade fetched another cleansing rag, simply to have something to do, something that got him out of Skywarp's radius for a moment. He returned, handing the new rag up to Skywarp, who took it gratefully. Skywarp wiped at Starscream's chin, leaning in to plant a tentative peck on the bronze mouth. Starscream drew back, startled.

Skywarp winked. "Now that I have your attention," he teased—still a strain. Barricade wondered if Starscream could see the effort that Skywarp was putting into this jovial mood. "We need you. Thundercracker needs you."

"Thundercracker is dead!"

"No. We have solars before that happens." No doubt Megatron's idea of false hope, or delaying, with grinding misery, the inevitable, dragging it out painfully slowly, so that the dread wait itself became a torture and the execution almost an afterthought. Barricade wondered if Megatron would be enjoying this scene—of his Air Commander shivering on the brink of tears. Probably.

"If only we were a Quaterne," Starscream repeated, numbly. His optics drifted around the room, as though he'd never seen it before. His own recharge. His optics fell on Barricade. "Quaterne," he repeated, as though the word meant something to him that he himself had not quite figured. "Barricade." He reached and pulled Barricade against him, the smaller mech grunting as his shoulder tires whacked against the jet's ribs. "Quaterne." He looked at Skywarp. "Do you not see? If we are a Quaterne, they cannot touch us. No one can."

"Yes, but…." Skywarp's optics measured Barricade. "No. It is too much to ask."

"Ask what?" This conversation was over his head, literally and figuratively. What?

"Quaterne," Starscream said, with a confident nod, as though that explained everything, his frame stilling. Barricade had read the texts the jet had called up for him. He knew that it was a group of four Seekers. And that they had been one once. But…where did he fit in?

"Don't understand," Barricade said, optics jumping between the jets.

"He wants you to bond with us. All of us. Become the fourth."

Yes. The word trembled in his vocalizer. Bond with Skywarp? Yes.

Skywarp shook his head. "I couldn't ask that much of you."

"You didn't ask," Barricade retorted. "Yes." He felt Starscream's hand clutch around his shoulders. Starscream's face bent down, nuzzling his cheekplates against Barricade's finials.

"Thank you," Starscream breathed. "Our fourth. Quaterne."

"He's not Skyfire," Skywarp said, bluntly. Barricade blinked. Why was Skywarp trying to push him out of this?

"Said I'd do it," Barricade pushed back. "Save Thundercracker." Be with you, he added.

"You don't know what it requires. What it means. I'm not even sure it's possible."

"It is," Starscream said. His optics had gotten back some of their focus. "It is possible. There is no law that says a Seeker unit must be entirely Seekers."

"It's sort of…understood."

"It is not specified. That means that it can be exploited in our favor." The hands stroked down Barricade's back. "He can be our quaternion. There is no law against it."

"This is one slag of a risk. You don't even know he can handle it. Or wants to."

"Yes!" Barricade said, louder. Was Skywarp ignoring him? "I want to." Better than doing nothing. Even if it didn't work, even if it failed, he would have been part of something that tried to fight back.

"You are afraid." Starscream's head tilted, as if probing a tactical problem. The optics had unclouded, the spinal cabling straightened. "You are afraid to bond with him. After all of that. You are afraid."

"I am not!" Skywarp protested, hotly. "You just…you don't know." Skywarp pushed away, standing up, trying to get some distance.

"I know that you have sparked with him, Skywarp." Starscream's voice was gentle but inexorable. "I know that you feel it was unwelcome." He paused to run a telltale finger over the dings in Barricade's chassis armor where Skywarp had dropped his weight, forcing Barricade's chamber to retract. "We both know how you feel. Why do you never heed how we feel?"

"Because…! Because it's vile and hateful and I have no right. I have never had… any right to do that." Skywarp slammed a fist into the wall, then froze, staring at the dent he'd made, the twinned gouges of his hand barbs. Damage. Again. All he could do was hurt things. Break things. Destroy.

Starscream gently pushed Barricade aside, pushing up, and crossing over to Skywarp. "We are one, Skywarp. There are no boundaries between us save what you put up. And you do not need to. Not with me. Never with me." He folded his hands around Skywarp's neck, laying his cheek against the black audio. "And not with Barricade. Ask him. If you love him as you say you do, do not presume to, once again, make his decisions for him. Do not decide, in your arrogance, that you know what is best for him, for you. Give up control. Yield." He tried to soften the harshness of his words, feeling Skywarp tremble as if being beaten by them, actually injured. Oh, Skywarp, he thought, his spark aching. Please. For yourself if for nothing else. Be strong, because if the Trine falls, I am gone, and there will be only you. Only you to carry us on. Please.

Skywarp ground his optic shutters. "Barricade?" he asked, staring still at the wall, his shut optics. "I have no right to ask this of you. And you have every right to refuse. But will you-?"

"Yes!" Barricade insisted, cutting Skywarp off. "Said I'd do it." Not for Thundercracker. For Skywarp. For Starscream. And not a little bit…for himself.

Starscream admonished him with a wry look. "The point, Barricade, was in the asking." Yes. The point was that Skywarp had to give up that much control, lay himself before Barricade. This was even a deeper risk than an apology, this was asking for…everything. This was asking more than simply letting go of the past: this was embracing a future.

Barricade pushed between them, tugging Skywarp away from the wall, where he was staring at the damage he'd done as though it were a mirror. "Yours," Barricade said, pulling the black jet into an embrace.

"No," Skywarp breathed, crushing the smaller mech against him. "Yours."


	42. Bond

A/N Something upbeat! :D

[***]

Skywarp shifted, nervously. Starscream gone to Skywarp's old recharge, assuring them he would be fine, leaving them awkward, alone, in unfamiliar territory in more ways than one. It had begun here…it seemed forever ago. It seemed somehow fitting that this should happen here as well, though Barricade felt bad that Starscream would be alone.

"So…how do we do this?" Barricade asked. He'd agreed but only now did he realize…he really had no idea what happened next.

"We…uh…we interface."

Barricade grinned. "That all? Think we're bonded already."

"Uhhhh, no. We have to interface with our sparks open."

Oh.

Skywarp bowed his head. "I told you. You don't want to do this."

"Do want to." He took Skywarp's hand, pulling him down next to him on the berth. He paused to brush his lips lightly over Skywarp's.

"You don't understand," Skywarp said, optics drooping, returning the kiss. As though his body and mind were on two separate tracks. "This changes everything. You can't go back once this starts. This is forever. You. Me. Starscream. Thundercracker."

"Yes." Barricade ran his talons over the armor covering the spark chamber.

"You're not listening, Barricade. If you decide you hate me, hate all of us…it doesn't change. Seekers. Duty and death. Forever."

"'M listening." Just that nothing Skywarp was throwing up as an objection mattered. Why worry about the future when the now was unstable and frightening enough? "Want this. Want you."

"Primus, little spike," the endearment slipped out, making Barricade glow even as Skywarp cringed. "After what I did last time?"

"Yes."

"I don't trust myself."

"Trust you enough for both of us." Barricade teased the armor again. "'M I going to have to call you a coward?" he taunted.

A series of unreadable expressions flickered across Skywarp's face. "Not fair, little spike. Not fair at all." But the voice was light, and he followed the words with a nip at Barricade's mouth that melted into a kiss. Barricade's talons stilled on the armor, his entire concentration on his mouth, feeling Skywarp's glossa, like a familiar stranger, hesitantly invite itself in. He met it eagerly, his lips grazing against the smooth finish of Skywarp's own armored plates, his own glossa daring to cross the threshold of Skywarp's mouth. How long had it been? Too long. Before Skywarp's journey, and then after that only that once, that…conflicting, confusing once. He missed kissing Skywarp, the taste of him, the sweet tangy metal smell of him, the beloved familiarity of his facial plates , his throat, under Barricade's hands.

Skywarp pulled away, his optics glowing. "Ready?"

Barricade gave a lopsided grin. "Always ask such stupid questions." Still, he trembled as he retracted his armor. Skywarp pushed back, dropping a kiss on the closed chamber. Barricade gasped at the contact, quivering as the kiss turned into another exploration, hot ex-vents and a glossa caressing the sensitized metal.

"Part of the bonding?" Barricade croaked. It was…almost too intense. And in a way…so very like Skywarp. Always at the verge of too much.

Skywarp looked up. "No. But I want to." He ducked down, swirling his glossa around the chamber's cover, smiling at Barricade's sudden ragged breath.

"Not…fair!" Barricade gasped.

"Perfectly fair," Skywarp retorted. "And you," he pecked at the cover. "are delicious like this." He tilted his head, sighed melodramatically, and retracted his own cover. The smile wavered. "Sure about this? Last chance."

"Sure." Barricade gripped his talons around Skywarp, pulling him down, wriggling his body under the jet's.

Skywarp looked down, then up, his optics worried. "I—I can't do this. Too much like..." He trailed off, helpless. Yes. Very much like the hangar. Barricade sat up, pushing Skywarp down. Barricade felt it too, but pushed it aside. There was no time for that. Saving Thundercracker, creating this quaterne, was huge in comparison to Barricade's petty fears, the ghosts of unwelcome memory taunting him.

"This way," he said, firmly. He lay on top of the jet, the cockpit bumping under his chassis, feeling the jet's interface equipment hum under its panel. Skywarp had to crane his neck to kiss him, his long arms wrapping around Barricade's back for a long moment.

"Yes," Skywarp said. "This way."

They shifted, awkward, unfamiliar with this position. Barricade laughed at their clumsiness as they wiggled to get their interface equipment uncovered, until he gasped as Skywarp's spike took his valve. It was the only plausible way, mechanically—to have their spark chambers close enough during overload. He could feel Skywarp's cold hesitation, his fear, even as he felt the warm spike, thick with lubricant, push into his valve. He sighed, his hands clutching at the shoulder armor.

"Stop?" Skywarp asked, earnestly.

"No." Barricade pushed himself up, the arms loosening across his back. "Should probably do this, though." He had to concentrate—he'd never opened his own spark before—the commands came clumsily to his processor. He felt a surge of energy, a wash of gold light, that limned Skywarp beneath him like rays of amber. Skywarp's face was afraid and eager at the same time as he retracted his own cover, the purple light playing against Barricade's gold, his spike taking a low counterpoint rhythm in the valve. Gentle, as carefully as Skywarp could, treating Barricade as though he were breakable. The tenderness touched Barricade, and he felt the firewalls, which had blocked him last time, fall away.

The interplay of light and energy swept Barricade away, out of his senses. He could see…feel…everything. Skywarp's past, laid out before him—the hard hot agony of Skyfire's death, a long, slow misery of training, the slow growth of the shivering self-contempt as his obedience to Thundercracker drew him further and further into darkness. He felt all of this, and more—Skywarp's fear of himself, fear of his unworthiness. Oh, a sweet sharp ache stabbed through Barricade. Skywarp. You needn't fear from me. Ever.

He could feel the frantic pulse of Skywarp's light slow, soothed, as if untangling itself somehow, laying itself in even, rippling waves under Barricade.

And he could feel the tentative, terrified brushes of Skywarp against him, afraid to intrude, but wanting desperately to know. He opened up against those, feeling the strange, ancient, beautiful presence in his own cortex, sampling his own history, tasting, with bitterness, the memory files where Barricade had been forced, violated, shamed, beaten. Barricade pushed aside the surge of anger, dissolving it. Not worth it. Anger has no place here, now, in this. This was powerful and beautiful and sacred and should not be marred by anger. It was the past, and the past no longer mattered. Only now. Only the present and the two of them, intertwined. Only this. Only this mattered.

He heard Skywarp moan, and it took him a moment to place the sound, so far had he gone—so far had they both gone—from their bodies. The sound recentered him, and he felt the overload rising swiftly across his mechanical systems, which seemed…nice but almost insignificant, a tiny pleasure compared the magnificent sweep of their sparks dancing, spinning together.

He pushed a half conscious thought, his only desire, into the swirling light. "Can we do this again? Ever?" He feared that this was a one time thing, only for the bonding. Only once and never again and he ached at the thought that it would be over soon. He could feel the climax building already, like a groundswell, and it tore at him to think that it would be over before he could get enough. He didn't think he could ever get enough.

"Yes." The answer wasn't so much a word as a yawning wide acceptance that had Skywarp's timbre. "Ever. Always."

He felt tears burst from his optics, his overload systems spill an overload across him like a net of stars, and the sparks flared together and his world went purple and gold and white.


	43. Release

A/N Some fluff :D

Skywarp shifted position, his systems cycling slowly online. This, he thought, his spinal cabling crackling as he moved slowly to his side, is why I don't recharge on my back. Don't know how Starscream does it, honestly. I'm not really sure how I ended up this way. Not how I recharge at all. It's how…oh.

He rolled to his side, catching sight of Barricade curled into a tight ball, doorwings limp, a protective hunch around his sparkchamber. Skywarp could feel a taut, unfamiliar presence in his cortex, also tight, as if trying not to take up too much space.

Skywarp risked a touch with one talon gently down the white armor of Barricade's upper arm. He could feel the sensation ripple through the new bond, feel echoes in Barricade's systems stirring up response. Soothing. Skywarp's hand trailed down Barricade's side, sweeping along his thigh. The little ball in his brain shot out prickles of fear. Skywarp probed, delicately, flashes of memory strobing at him. He could feel the tight ball darken, Barricade's recharging processor summoning a bad purge of memory. No. Skywarp wouldn't allow that. He pushed in, gently, clumsily, acutely aware that he used to do this better, more skillfully, that he used to trust his knowing to know what to do.

Skywarp sent a tentative push of calm along the bond, feeling his way into Barricade's processor, pushing the calmness in front of him like a wave. He heard a whimper start, and then fade, from the smaller mech's vocalizer. He reached in to the bad memories, pulling them like weeds out of Barricade's processing code. He felt Barricade relax, release, both physically and internally, the tight ball beginning to lose its sharper edges, blur and blend and seep, hesitantly, into Skywarp's own.

He sent a pulse of warm encouragement. A sudden constriction of fear, another burst of bad memories—brutal laughing faces, physical violence, a stabbing agony that lanced through Skywarp's interface systems, a sickly yellow-green burst of humiliations suffered.

Skywarp quailed, momentarily. This. This is what you forced. You took him, in your wrath and fear, and you inflicted this upon him, gouging deeper into a cut others had made, tearing apart scars Barricade had tried to trust you with. His systems shivered. He withdrew. This was a mistake. This whole thing. The bonding…everything. How could he have asked Barricade to open himself up like this…to him?

"I'm sorry," he whispered. He couldn't say he hadn't meant to hurt Barricade: he had. He had meant to hurt him, enough to drive him away. Not enough to…ruin him. Once again—he could almost hear Thundercracker's voice—you didn't think things through. No foresight. Always your failing.

Face what you've done, Skywarp. Not just to him. To all of them. Violator. Stripping, ripping into their bodies, tearing at their sparks. Awful. Vile. There are no words for you. His hand, which had been stroking soothingly along Barricade's frame, withdrew. Self-hate felt like a bar across his throat. Unworthy to touch. Unwanted.

_Wanted_. He felt a small, nervous push from the presence in his cortex. Wanted and needed and loved. The ball's borders fuzzed, trying to reach out, or at least allow in. And it occurred to Skywarp that he was also holding back, holding himself in, letting the ball isolate itself for fear of what it might see: his thoughts, his memories, his feelings. Oh…if Barricade knew the fierce and terrible joy he had felt…!

A slide of knowing. And the boundaries fuzzed even more, the ball changing color, changing shape, stretching and iridescent.

Could do it again, he thought, hating to give even that much coherence, that much thought to his darkest fear.

_Won't. Can't._ The thought came back, foreign and yet familiar, tinged with everything he had come to associate with the grounder: slightly truculent and still trusting. Open, yet hard-edged and jagged. _Love you. _

Skywarp sighed. Love doesn't solve everything. Doesn't fix anything. Skywarp was still—Skywarp—violent and vicious and callous and damaged. Just makes it hurt more when you fall.

_Be there when it hurts. Can hurt together_. Bitter and sweet in equal measure. The presence in his cortex opened a bit more, unfolding, like a dark, unsteady flower. He stiffened, feeling it spread, sending vines and runners through him, but each contact brought no fear or rejection, only the earnest desire to soothe. He released his tension, his worry, for Barricade's sake. Let it go. Let it fall away into the other darkness, a thing for another time. Right now there was…this: the tentative, awkward steps of Barricade feeling his way along a bond he'd never dreamed he'd have, giving his entire effort over to doing something he didn't even know how to do, right. He is trying; you are not. That was the ultimate realization. You want to be in charge, be the one comforting him. Stiff and tight and withholding when it comes to yourself. It doesn't work like that.

_Doesn't,_ the presence echoed in his cortex, radiating nothing but warmth and openness. _Be comforted, please?_ A high thin wire of a request. _Don't know how else to thank you._

Thank him. Skywarp's optics cycled down, his arm coming to pull the smaller mech, whose frame was still heavy in recharge, against him. I should thank you. For being there for us. With us. For doing…this.

The last wall of resistance broke, a thin membrane ruptured with a flick of pain/panic. Impossible to say whose. And they were one, feeling entirely each other's systems, thoughts, memories, even the things that thoughts were before they were thoughts—that formless glob of unformed half-translated emotion. _Secret?_ Barricade's voice, distinct even when not run through Skywarp's audio. It had the flavor of the smaller mech, his essence. _Secret? Did it for you. Not the others, not for any noble rescue. Selfish. Me._

I'm selfish, too, Skywarp thought back, burying his face in the armor between Barricade's doorwings.


	44. Flight

Barricade woke up? Came to? It felt like cycles later. He was curled on his side, Skywarp's bulk wrapped around him like a protective shell, the jet's cockpit wedged between his doorwings. He stirred, feeling dizzy. Unsettled.

Skywarp shifted behind him and Barricade reeled, feeling his vision shift to double—seeing Skywarp, seeing himself through what must be Skywarp's optics.

"How do you feel?" Skywarp asked, curious, hesitant. Barricade could feel his concern—perhaps a groundframe was not made for that? He wasn't sure himself, honestly.

"Want to go flying," Barricade blurted. He felt it almost like an ache, a desire to do something he never wanted to do, to feel the cold of space caress his armor, feel the power and control of his thrusters cutting through vacuum, carving elegant shapes into the sky. Since when?

Skywarp laughed. "That's me you're feeling, little spike." He bent his neck and kissed Barricade, gently. "You get used to it. After a while you'll be able to control the link. Shut it down entirely if you need to."

"Why'd I want to do that?" Why would he want to close a link with Skywarp? It felt…amazing. Huge and powerful and so rich and vast. Like a treasure being poured into his hands.

Skywarp's smile saddened. "We did. A long time ago. Because it hurt too much."

Barricade drooped. Already he'd overstepped. Gone too far. "Sorry," Barricade said. He felt…something, almost a tickle in the back of his cortex. Skywarp, opening his side of the link, pushing at his awkward apology. Barricade retreated. "YOU want to go flying."

"Yes."

"Why don't you?"

Another brush at his cortex. "Because you don't like it."

Barricade quivered. "Never saw you fly."

Half of Skywarp's mouth quirked in a smile. "You want to?"

"Yes." Another brush at his cortex, and this time he could feel, almost see, what Skywarp was finding—his regret, when he had flown with Starscream, that he had never seen Skywarp fly. Never seen something that was so…essential, innate to being a Seeker. "And stop showing off that you can do this better'n me."

The grin grew to the other side. "If I were any good, you wouldn't feel me at all."

Barricade squirmed up the large body, twisting in the embrace, his arms around the Seeker's neck. "Then don't get good." The intimacy of Skywarp's touches in his cortex were something he could never have imagined. As for Skywarp's searches—he had no secrets. Not from Skywarp. Everything was his. All of it.

Skywarp allowed himself to get pulled into another kiss before rolling to his other side, taking Barricade with him.

"Where are we going?" Barricade asked.

"We," Skywarp said, depositing Barricade on his feet before rising to his full height, "are going flying. But only because you want me to." Barricade could feel the tease across their link, Skywarp's sly demurral of his own desire to fly. Is this what it would be like, this bond? This made a private comm freq feel so…limited. Barricade had never imagined anything like this. He couldn't imagine it ever getting old.

"You…okay?" he had to ask. "Regret it?"

He felt a tide of warmth push toward him. Unfeigned, inviting him to feel it. "No," Skywarp said, just in case Barricade couldn't read it enough in the bond. "No regrets. And I love you." The words seemed to scintillate in the air between them, lit with the energy of their bond.

[***]

"Want to watch you," Barricade insisted, hovering near the ship in his propack. He'd have been content to watch from the hangar, but Skywarp had insisted, so he let himself be rigged with a pack and had puttered gamely, lamely after Skywarp. It filled him with a content he had never known watching Skywarp wheel and angle and arc through the starry expanse. Watching Starscream had been one thing: a cool aesthetic appreciation. This was…different somehow.

/Close your optics./ Skywarp said. Barricade obeyed, and suddenly his senses blared to life, as Skywarp helped inch the bond open a little wider and the boundaries between them seemed to disappear. He could feel acceleration across his wingpanels (his?) like a cool caress of air, could feel the hum of his thrusters vibrating pleasurably, could feel a completely alien shifting and sliding of parts as Skywarp shifted from his alt to his bipedal mode, all the while still carving arabesques into the sky with elegant precision. He knew…instantly, entirely…why airframes felt such contempt for grounders, limited, constrained to…going over surfaces. Rolling on tires, in contact, in need of gravity. He was…free of that, suddenly, free and powerful and uncontainable.

/Yes./ Barricade opened his eyes just as Skywarp cut his engines to a hover, an arm's reach away. /It's beautiful feeling it from you,/ Skywarp murmured. Barricade looked down at his own hands, the pro-pack controls rigged into his wrists.

/Take me?/ Barricade trusted Skywarp would know what he was asking—please, let me feel that for myself, let me feel, imagine, pretend, engross myself in that sensation.

Skywarp shifted easily behind Barricade, wrapping him against his chassis, pausing to nuzzle against the back of Barricade's helm. Barricade cut his optics, concentrating on the feel, again, through his bond, the easy grace and power, as Skywarp accelerated, turned, wheeled, dove. These motions used to terrify him, fraught with memories. Now they seemed…natural, extensions of him and he could not imagine ever being afraid of them again.

/I'll never be able to do that./

/No. But you can,/ Skywarp ducked in for a kiss, and the warmth of his frame was startling against the cold of space, /keep us grounded. We need you. I need you./ Through the bond, Barricade felt a wash of sparkling light.

[***]

Starscream shifted, restless. Skywarp and Barricade, right now, were using his recharge cube to bond. They'd open that bond together with each other. The one Starscream missed so much. They could open their links only limitedly. Not like they used to. Not enough to feel everything together. Just physical sensation. Just astrogation. Enough to perform well in Trine combat runs—perfect synchrony. Without the 'distraction' of emotions. When had they shut down? Why?

He ached with something like envy for what they were going to have. It was thin consolation knowing that his turn would be next—that if nothing else, he would have a fresh start, a new bond. But with Barricade. Not that he did not like the grounder, but…he was not Skywarp. Or Thundercracker.

This line of thought was threatening to suck him into despair. He could already feel Skyfire's ghost in the edges of his processor. No. He needed to stay strong. Coherent. He could not afford, not now, to falter. To fall.

He pushed himself off of his borrowed berth, and headed down to the brig. Megatron had, in his infinitesimal and backwards mercy, allowed Thundercracker to have visitors, at least. If it was consolation or mercy to be separated by a force barrier.

Thundercracker heard him coming, pushed up from the narrow berth into a defensive crouch. He straightened when he saw Starscream. They stared at each other, wordless, neither knowing how to begin. Fearing how it might end.

"I—I am sorry," Starscream breathed. The force barrier hummed warningly as he stepped in.

Thundercracker shook his head. "I don't even know what that was. He does that to you? He treats you like that? Your commander?"

"Our commander. Our leader," Starscream said, softly.

"He oversteps."

"Perhaps."

"How could you…why didn't you tell us?"

Starscream shrugged, uncomfortable. "It was no large matter. We filled each other's needs."

Thundercracker stepped back. "He…humiliates you."

"Yes. It is his way." Starscream faltered. He did not want to defend Megatron. Or himself, and what he had let himself become. He felt—so acutely that it scored him like knives—his own culpability. He had yielded and yielded, retreated and retreated, never holding a line for dignity or respect. If he had…this would not have happened. Would not be happening.

"How can you let him?"

Starscream squirmed, his optics dropping to the barrier's generator idly. He had the disarm codes, but what would be the point? Nothing would be gained by such a mad, rash attempt. Not when they had a plan that stood a chance of working. "He is our leader. He demands it. It is…not so different from Skywarp."

"Skywarp means it differently, you know that." Thundercracker frowned, knowing the words didn't come out right. Starscream nodded. He knew what he meant. Skywarp's use of him came from love and trust, mutual. He knew Skywarp trusted him to contain, to hold his darkness for him. He was an honored vessel for Skywarp: he was an object to be spat upon for Megatron. Subtle but a world of difference between them. He had always known, but had…refused to know.

"Yes." He didn't want to talk about that. "We have a solution."

"Kill the fragger." Thundercracker's optics were bright lines of hateful red. Unforgiving. It stirred something in Starscream, this protective rage of Thundercracker's. So close to what felt like love.

"We cannot. But we can neutralize him."

"How." Not really a question. More like a flat denial of the possibility.

"We can," Starscream's voice grew breathy from fear and excitement, "become a Quaterne."

"Become a—oh no." Thundercracker shook his head. "Not with the grounder."

Starscream braced himself. Courage. "It is already being done. Right now, Skywarp is bonding with him."

Thundercracker snarled a string of obscenities, whirling in the cell as if looking for something to strike. "Ruinous! This is ruinous! What were you thinking?" His optics were feral when he turned back, blue talons in raking claws.

"Saving you. Saving us. If we are a Quaterne…no one can touch us."

Thundercracker's rage showed in his tight ex-vents, air hissing from his intakes. He trembled with rage. But Starscream could feel the point seeping in, the possibilities, potentialities seeping in through cracks in Thundercracker's objections.

"We could get back what was lost," Starscream whispered.

"I can't. You can't ask me to…bond with that thing!"

Starscream's mouth flinched into a minute expression of pain. "Why not? Is it different from what you used to make Skywarp do? Make me do?"

Thundercracker reeled back, shocked. "But I—I was never like him. Like Megatron."

"No. Never. I did not say that you were. Merely that you overcome your objection. Just once. Please. For all of us. Not just yourself. We need you." Starscream placed a hand on the force barrier, feeling it vibrate under his palm.

The choice was simple: let his pride win, and die, and take the Trine down with him; or give in, just once. Cede control. Push aside his prejudice. Which was more important?

"I don't ever want to see Megatron touch you again," he said, quietly.

"There is only the one way. I know it is much to ask of you."

No. Not after what he had demanded of them, from them, all those ages ago. It was not too much to ask in comparison. He felt the guilt like a blow; that he had somehow laid the first stones on the pathway to what he had seen Megatron do—so casually debase Starscream. He staggered back against it, under its weight. Made even heavier by the fact that Starscream, who could, who SHOULD be raging with blame at him, merely stood there. Radiating, if anything, a quiet kind of sympathy. Asking only this much. Asking. Not demanding.

He sagged against the barrier, his fist on the opposite side as Starscream's spread palm. I will do anything never to see that again. Anything. "Yes," he said.


	45. Second Bond

"I have spoken to Thundercracker," Starscream said as the magnets in his feet clacked down against the hangar's deckplates. He had joined them on the flight, watching them with something almost like envy, carving his own intricate aerobatic maneuvers with almost careless ease—not the wild, exuberant flight of Skywarp, but something closer, elegant, more smoothly practiced. Barricade had never noticed these differences. Didn't think they mattered before. He wondered how Thundercracker flew—what style of flying fit his character.

"And?" Skywarp lowered Barricade to the deck. It had simply been easier and faster to let Skywarp fly him back than to have him trail behind on the weak thrusters of the propack, and, to be honest, the physical contact was comforting to Barricade. It was a little disorienting to be separate, to see things in a slightly doubled vision, have a sense of being two places instead of one.

Starscream smirked. "Like you, he is needlessly stubborn in the face of exigencies."

Skywarp scowled. Barricade could feel the dark mood thrum through him.

"I simply informed him," Starscream said, walking toward the shipside door, "that we had submitted the matter to a Trine vote."

A ripple in the dark humor.

Starscream smiled over his shoulder. "He did appreciate the irony."

"He'll comply?" A wire of tension through the link.

"He knows when his best interests are more important than his quibbles," Starscream said, blithely. "Besides, he fully expects to hold it over our heads as the pinnacle of martyrdom."

Skywarp smirked. "That sounds like him."

"Now," Starscream said, turning to help Barricade strip off the pro-pack's connectors. "How went the bonding? I presume well, since Barricade is nearly glowing."

Skywarp dropped his optics, a little abashed. "Went well." Barricade shifted, nervously. Was it that obvious?

"Good. It is beyond time you two have joy of each other." He ran a speculative hand up Barricade's arm, his talons clittering over the white upper panel. "He has adapted well?"

"He…can't control the link."

"Oh, indeed?" Starscream's optics narrowed, slyly. "On both ends?"

"I'm…not sure you need to know that," Skywarp said, almost dropping into an apprehensive crouch. He put a possessive arm around Barricade.

"I am quite certain that I do," Starscream tugged Barricade closer, pulling his mouth into a fierce kiss, dropping the pro-pack to the floor as his hands ran eagerly over the smaller mech's back kibble. Startled, Barricade made a soft moan. Behind him, Skywarp shivered.

"Oh, not fair," Skywarp breathed.

"It is entirely fair," Starscream said, breaking the kiss. "I am half inclined to bond with him here save that this," he spun one of the drivetrain tires idly, smiling wickedly as both Barricade and Skywarp quivered, "is so…diverting."

"We do have a timeframe," Skywarp choked.

Starscream's triumphant teasing smile withered a bit at the edges. "Yes," he said, softly. "Let us do it swiftly then." His optics clouded with worry. Barricade could feel Skywarp's worry and regret—spoke too soon, too harshly, too hastily and now I've upset him—grate inside his cortex. He ached to make it better. He pulled Starscream back down to him, burying his face in the jet's collar armor, one hand's small talons slipping under the heavy plates to tickle the cabling. He heard Starscream's breath catch. He pulled away, murmuring in the audio, "Can do both—get it done fast…and tease Skywarp."

He heard a soft, sad laugh, felt long arms tighten briefly around him. "You are our fourth," Starscream whispered.

[***]

Starscream had led the way back to his recharge, stopping at intervals to caress Barricade, once throwing him against the wall and blazing a line of kisses down his frame, snickering as behind him, Skywarp shuddered as the sensation carried across Barricade's open link.

"This," Starscream chortled, "is too much fun."

Barricade, his net inflamed by both Starscream's expert teases and Skywarp's echoed response, wobbled to the berth unsteadily. Starscream pushed him down, looming over him with mock menace, as Skywarp settled to the floor. "Were I evil," Starscream observed, between nips to Barricade's arm tires, "were I truly evil, I would open a Trine link as well."

"Go frag yourself," Skywarp groaned.

"Ah, but you would enjoy that." Starscream paused to wink his optics at the black jet. "Almost as much as you would enjoy _this_." He ducked down to lick at the air intake under Barricade's grille. Barricade squeaked.

"Not a toy," Barricade gasped, when Starscream finally lifted his head from where his glossa had been exploring the intake, probing into it, flicking up against the filtration barrier.

Starscream tilted his head. "Mmmmm, perhaps not. But you have always been…entertaining." His talons trailed down to Barricade's interface housing.

"That's not how you bond," Skywarp muttered.

"Oh, it is very much how I bond," Starscream simpered. "Do not worry, Skywarp, I do recall what I must do. I just choose not to make it seem so…dire." We are saving Thundercracker, he thought. We are solving…everything. And he so, so desperately needed some lightness of his own. He had wept and worried enough. And Barricade had been through enough for the Trine, at the Trine's hands. Starscream would make this pleasurable for him. His optics met the grounder's. Shivering with desire, but Starscream could see that he understood, not only Starscream's need for levity, but his need to be in control: Starscream's own, hesitant kind of control. Starscream himself was…untrusting after Megatron's dominant humiliation. He too needed to restore his equilibrium. He winked at Barricade, a mutual understanding, and slithered down the splayed out frame, licking across the grille's mesh, the wrist tire on the hand Barricade raised to brush against his face, and down between his legs.

Starscream planted a trail of kisses up the inner thigh, glossa flicking into the cabling, teasing around the knee joint. His fingers explored lower down: the shin plates, the solid armor of Barricade's diminutive feet, the round swells of the gyroscopic stabilizers. Barricade breathed out a long shaky sigh, giving in to Starscream's ministrations. Yielding. Opening to be touched.

"I hate you," Skywarp, whispered, crawling up on the berth.

"You do not," Starscream chided. "If you did, you would not be doing…all of this." A flicker of sorrow in the red optics, that he forcefully overrode, diving down to Barricade's interface hatch, popping it open expertly with his thumb. He ex-vented noisily, letting the wash of warmer air strike the equipment covers, grinning as Barricade quivered and Skywarp gave a tense jerk. Yes. Oh yes. This was Starscream's kind of control. He blanked his optics to savor it for a moment, before tracing both covers in a figure-8 with his glossa, his own sensornet shimmering with desire. A want, a willingness, a need to please.

"Which do you want?" Barricade breathed. Giving in. Yielding. Starscream shivered.

"I am," he brought his mouth closer, between the covers, so that the vibration of his voice would carry through the metal, "feeling rather greedy. I should like both, please." Barricade's talons scratched at the berth as he released both of his covers. For a moment, Starscream hesitated as the spike unhoused itself, remembering Megatron. But he also remembered, and grabbed for those memories with forceful hands, other times. Like this. Where he was eager and willing and it had not been about control and shame. He wanted, he needed, at times, to be forced, pushed down, dominated. But sometimes, also, he needed to be able to give.

He licked at the spike, sharp little jabs with his glossa, before he enveloped the whole thing in his mouth. Barricade shuddered, his hands reaching for Starscream's, pulling one of the long, barbed hands against him, smaller talons stroking into the joints, comforting, soothing, as if he could sense how this might disturb Starscream. The consideration made Starscream choke for a klik, the fingers tightening on Barricade's armor.

Skywarp panted tightly, optics locking on Starscream's, glistening with desire. Starscream met his gaze as his glossa began working along Barricade's spike. Skywarp stretched his hands up over his head, attempting to resist the temptation to unsheathe his own spike, determined to suffer along his link. Oh, Skywarp always did take the hard way, Starscream thought, amused, and turned his attention to Barricade, who squirmed under his mouth, his hand, talons scrabbling at Starscream's hand, mouth closing around the end of one of Starscream's fingers, glossa twining frantically around the bronze talon. Starscream growled softly, feeling the vibration judder down the length of Barricade's spike, over his body. Barricade's denta bit down in surprise, pinching Starscream's talon, his legs twisting, torn between wanting to push the hips up and just…flailing against the jet. With his free hand, Starscream flipped one of the worming legs up over his shoulder, feeling the warm armor trembling over his folded wing, as he sucked at the spike, his glossa diving in to prod the sensitized, charging nodes.

Barricade went rigid, his talons digging into Starscream's hand, as he overloaded. Over him, Skywarp groaned, his larger frame jerking against the berth. Starscream released the spike from his mouth with a triumphant smile, the transfluid sweet on his glossa. "Well," he said, "I enjoyed that immensely."

Skywarp snarled, lunging at him, their mouths locking in a furious kind of kiss, the black jet's glossa diving into Starscream's mouth, his long legs wrapping around Starscream's. Starscream returned the kiss, his glossa poking at Skywarp's in a little game of 'catch me' until Skywarp broke away, his vents still ragged, his frame still hot under Starscream's touch.

"You," Starscream chided, licking at Skywarp's cheek, "are interfering with my timetable."

Skywarp growled without malice, throwing himself back on the berth. Starscream chortled as he saw the small silver trail leaking from Skywarp's still-closed interface hatch. So stubborn, Skywarp was.

Starscream turned to Barricade, tracing the rim of the valve with one talon. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah."

"I shall have to spike you."

"Yeah. Know. Be fine." Barricade loosened, as if Starscream's oblique concern was enough to reassure him. He retracted his armor, laying his spark chamber bare. Starscream leaned over, brushing a soft kiss across his mouthplates, the only sound between them for a moment the hydraulic hiss of Starscream's own armor retraction. Starscream settled himself down over Barricade, braced over the smaller mech on his forearms, as he sank his spike carefully into the valve. Barricade sucked in a breath, his hands pushing out to the sides, tires skimming the surface of the berth, asking, mutely, to be pinned down. Volunteering his openness. Starscream flipped his thumbs up, just enough to apply some weight, pushing the tires into the berth. Barricade closed his optic shutters, his spark chamber blossoming open. Starscream could feel the light strike him, like electrified sunshine, like love and trust made palpable. His own chamber opened, and he felt his own blue-white light spill down upon Barricade. The two of them yielded together, gentle, tentative, shy. Starscream could feel Barricade's worry—about Skywarp, about Starscream. And through Barricade, he could feel Skywarp, the roiling mass of Skywarp's emotions and tangled desires.

The bodily joining was almost insignifcant, compared to the delicate rills of sensation across the sparklight. And he could feel Barricade melding with him, could taste memories, thoughts, emotions that were not his, and some that were so familiar and similar they seemed just variations of flavor—a fierce protectiveness of Skywarp, a deep, worried love with the fear that he'd never be able to do enough to deserve it. His mouth kissed the top of Barricade's crest, their bodies surging gently together, slow, graceful undulations, rolling in rhythm with the dance of their sparks. Skywarp lolled on the berth, weak, overcome, drawn to the both of them through the uncontrolled link. Starscream let go of any conscious control, trusting his systems to carry him forward, carry him on, letting himself let go and just ride the cresting sensations—physical, emotional, indescribable. He heard a cry—maybe two voices, maybe three—as the sparklights flared into the bonding overload.

It was Skywarp, of course, who awakened him, face unreadable, fierce, torn between which of them he wanted to kiss more, strong hands prying Starscream up, carrying him over onto his back. Starscream blinked dreamily. "We have not been that open with each other…in ages." A clumsy sentence, but the only way he could try to express the bittersweet joy he felt at feeling Skywarp so intimately again. He knew that the right words, the right meaning, would travel along the reawakened bond, transmitted through Barricade, felt Skywarp's response, a sort of tender pang.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"You need never apologize, Skywarp." Just…do not shut me out again. Do not let us lose this now that we have rediscovered how precious it was. And let us not regret the time we have wasted. Skywarp nodded, his hands trembling as he lifted them. Beside them, Barricade made a contented sigh. Skywarp turned to him, his mouth finding Barricade's with a grateful familiarity. "Okay, little spike?" he asked, his voice rough and raw.

"Can feel both of you," Barricade whispered. His cortex spun, as if his process trees were too small to handle the extra load.

"Hurt?" Skywarp's optics flared with concern. He probed gently along their bond, feeling Barricade's swirling thoughts, gold and blue white and purple all intertwined, separate and yet together, an untyable knot.

"No. Feels…wonderful." He reached up to trace a line down Skywarp's cheek. Skywarp closed his optics, leaning into the caress. He heard Starscream sigh and…the thought struck him. He bent down, a gentle kiss growing more and more intense, his hands teasing with Barricade's shoulder kibble, flicking into the spokes of his arm tires, prodding at the give of the tires. Starscream whimpered. Yes. Oh yes. Skywarp looked over at Starscream, his grin filled with a loving malice. "Oh look," he said, struggling to keep the laughter from his voice. "He can't shut down his end of the link. Isn't it fun?"

"Evil!" Starscream gasped.

"Turnabout."


	46. Price of Ambition

A/N After last week's fluffiness, sadly, we have to remember who our enemy is. And it's ugly. Sadism, noncon, guro. ;_;

[***]

"I see no harm in waiting," Megatron said, smoothly. A veiled hint at Soundwave. Do not question my judgment. There was, he knew, no harm in waiting. Let the Seekers try their hardest. Let them feel every agonizing grating moment slip through their arrogant talons. Let each klik as it passes speak to them of Megatron's power, his control, his ultimate inevitable authority. Let Thundercracker have ample, ample time to contemplate his sins, his presumption, his punishment. Let Starscream feel the humiliation and the loss. The Air Commander would never dare stand up to him again.

"I do not like it," Soundwave murmured. Wise enough to not disagree openly. "They plot. They have been plotting against me all this time."

Megatron shrugged. "Let them waste their time and energy trying to escape from a room that has no doors, Soundwave. Watch them struggle. Insects. Dying frantic insects and nothing more." One move. That's all it had taken. And the command Trine was in his grasp. He inhaled, as though this victory had a scent he could capture. He could still see Starscream's startled face, could still feel the last raw drag of his spike's nodes over the lip plates.

Soundwave edged closer. "Yes, my lord," he said, quietly. He sensed opportunity. Megatron had elevated him above Starscream during his absence. That was not accidental. Megatron had chosen HIM over Starscream. Elevating his Third above his Second. He needed this. This was his opportunity and he would not squander it by meekness. "I cede to your wisdom."

Megatron stiffened, slightly, searching for some trace of sarcasm, so long had he been accustomed to Starscream's perpetual sheathed barbs. "Do you."

"Yes, my lord."

Megatron's optics glittered. Starscream, entirely cowed, would be an advantage. But it would leave something…lacking. He began to wonder what else Soundwave might cede to. He turned, his optics meeting Soundwave's. He could command, he could order, he knew. But he wanted this to be different. To draw Soundwave out. The satellite was a closed system, unreadable. Wrapped up tightly. Megatron longed to unwrap it, pull it open, see what lay inside that made it work.

"You could be very useful to me," Megatron said. A hint, given with a sidelong, coy glance. He saw a gratifying flutter in Soundwave's panels. Yes. Interest.

"In ways you could not imagine," Soundwave murmured. He risked a return slide of the optics at Megatron, dropping the gaze with alarm as Megatron caught the glance and cast an appraising look up and down Soundwave's form, as if seeing him for the first time.

"Indeed," Megatron said, dryly.

Soundwave shifted forward. This was his chance. This was his leverage. If he could get into Megatron, completely supplant Starscream, this would be his power. This would be his control. "I can," he said, sidling closer, extruding four of his silvery tentacles from under his armor, "give you whatever, and whomever you desire."

Megatron tilted his head, considering, his optics hard on Soundwave. "Why not yourself?" Testing, pushing.

"Why have me when you can have…any mech you want. Starscream? Brought to heel? Optimus himself?" Soundwave purred, stepping forward, letting two of his tentacles drift, as if weightless, in the distance between them. Megatron watched them, intrigued, fascinated. Emboldened, Soundwave let one trace an impossibly light line down Megatron's thigh, settling itself along a seam in the armor. He looked to Megatron. No signal to stop. He let the tentacle shift, unlocking the nanites from their tight bonds, letting them seep like quicksilver through the seam, into the circuitry underneath.

Megatron twitched at the intrusion, his mouth plates jumpy, unsteady. Soundwave activated the probes quickly, latching into Megatron's sensornet. He amped up his calibration slowly—no time to signal too high, and risk pain. Soundwave felt the startled response at the pleasurable tingle, at how he extended it, in a rush, from the thigh through the entire net. Yes, he gloated. I am that good.

"More?" he asked. Reminding Megatron that Megatron was in control. Or…at least granting him the courtesy of illusion.

"Intriguing," Megatron said. "Yes."

Soundwave struggled to keep the exultation from his face. "I shall have to approach more closely."

Megatron gestured expansively, granting permission. Soundwave attached more tentacles, letting them skirt around the armor, caress the solid, overlocked plates before they delved beneath the surfaces.

Megatron sighed as the extra probes fired their controls. Soundwave ran through a quick sequence of sensations from his memory cortex, a library of touches from caresses to scratches, a variety of sensations from tingling to outright borderline overload. Megatron growled as Soundwave backed off the last.

"Mere sensation," Soundwave said, apologetically, secretly reveling that he was playing Megatron like an instrument. A finely calibrated, exquisite instrument. "Sensation is merely brutish mechanics without," and here he risked a probe of the cortex, "the mind."

Soundwave opened into the cortex, feeling, sensing, searching out. He sent a query, short, simple, direct: 'Starscream'. Hits flooded back to him. Of course. Some were memory cached—realities. Old experiences. Too risky. Some were…imagination, entirely. He riffled, quickly. Something dark. He ran a subsearch, a filter. Yes.

[***]

_Megatron hissed as Starscream appeared before him, raging, defiant. _

_"You do not talk to me like this, Starscream," Megatron sneered. He shoved up from his command chair into a smooth, vicious strike that caught the surprised Seeker—too startled to even block—across the face. He could feel the back of his hand land solidly against the faceplates, hear the ring of metal against metal and Starscream's pathetic mewl as he slued to the floor. Megatron tripped the jet as he stumbled, exulting as he landed hard on the floor, his talons gouging the deckplates. Megatron loomed over him, smelling the heated oil, feeling the hot bursts of the jet's ex-vents. He felt a rush of desire through his systems, a raging torrent of signals. If Starsceam ever knew the power of his arousal…._

_He would not know. He could not know. Megatron seized one of the folded wings, hauling upward. Raw lust burned through Megatron's system at the howl of pain. _

_Yes, Megatron thought. This is how I want you. He twisted the wing panels, feeling them wrench in their mounts, one or two of the hinges popping bolts. Starscream's howl rose to a keen, fading to a crackle as the vocalizer lost charge. Long bronze talons came up, clawing desperately at Megatron's hand. Megatron snatched the hand bending one of the talons backwards, gloating, grinning, riding a wave of power, lust, control, desire as the joint cracked, fluid bursting over Megatron's fingers. Starscream collapsed to his knees, panting at the floor. _

_"How much of your arrogance will you retain," Megatron mused, "without your wings." _

_"No," Starscream pleaded, his voice thin, desperate. Intoxicating to Megatron's audio. "Please. Do not. I shall not overreach again." The jet groveled lower on his knees before Megatron. _

_Good, Megatron thought. Heady, rich, surrendering. But still, not quite good enough. Not low enough. Not sincere enough. Not in enough pain. _

_He tore at the wing, bracing one hand against the jet's shoulder while the other fired its entire array of actuators, his systems rerouting power to the arms, tearing the folded wing from the jet's back. Starscream bucked in unimaginable agony, fluids gushing from tears in the metal, circuitry sparking. Megatron could feel an echo of the pain he was inflicting, a mirror image, as intense a pleasure as the pain he was wreaking. Oh, glorious. And Starscream was groveling beneath him, abasing himself, embracing Megatron's ankle, his sobbing breath hot in Megatron's cabling. _

_"Is that enough," Megatron goaded. "Have you learned your place? Or shall I take your engines as well?" His hand curled around the engine intake, prying up the metal, his fingers slick with the jet's energon, the acrid stench of spark-crisped lubricant in his olfactory sensors. "What would you be without your engines, Starscream?" he purred. _

_"No!" the jet sobbed, "Please!" He shivered. Megatron shivered as well, feeling the lust pour through him, effervescent and dark. _

_"What would you be?" _

_"Nothing!" The bronze jet abased himself, his chassis bowed to the floor. "I am nothing!" _

_Yes! Megatron roared inwardly, savoring his triumph, as if letting any of it escape to the surface would ruin it, dilute it. He wanted this all to himself: the smell of the burnt fluids and the torsion-stressed metal; the sounds of rending echoing in his audio as he tore up the engine, the high wail of Starscream in pain, losing his engine, losing what it meant to be a Seeker; the delectable spectacle of the bronze form trembling in agony; the feel of his fear-heated plates giving, buckling under Megatron's hand…._

[***]

The overload tore through him, neatly, cleanly, like laserfire. He felt both of his systems trip, but…none of the uncomfortable, unseemly physical side effects—no flood of transfluid, no gush of cleansing lubricant. Just pure signal, clear of noise. Raw intensity that burned to his core.

He shook himself, coming back to where he was, when he was, Soundwave's face impassive over him, the tentacles retracting slowly, almost regretfully.

Soundwave repressed a shiver. To consolidate his power on the brutal fantasies of his master, to feed them, actuate them, make them realer than reality. This was the price of his new rank. Could he pay it? Before he withdrew his last tentacle, he let it send one small, whispered query through the cortex. 'Soundwave', with the same subtag. It pulled up three hits. He quivered where he stood, forcing himself to be still, to turn the horrified shudder into a demure riffle of the solar panels. He did not think he could bear it. No. Never. He purged the files, erasing them and even the memory of them with surgical precision. He could not live those out. Not even in fantasy. Not at any price. Not now that he'd had a taste of Megatron's lusts. Even at this distance, an arm's reach away.


	47. Third Bond

A/N Back to happytiemz! Thanks to everyone who's been reading. Two chapters left to wrap things up and I hope you've enjoyed the ride!

Barricade followed Starscream to the brig, the bronze Seeker's stride self-assured, loose, happy. He could feel it, too, through his new bond. Starscream was…happy. It was a weird feeling. Contagious. He found himself almost bouncing along behind. Starscream paused at the door to the brig. "Now," he said, "I will go with you to smooth things over and to lower the barrier."

It sounded…final. Barricade felt a clutch of fear. "You're not going to stay?"

"With the bond wide open…," Starscream winked. "Someone will need to take care of Skywarp." Oh. He hadn't thought of that. They'd be feeling everything. Because he wasn't good at controlling the bond. Even now, he could feel Skywarp, a thrum of anticipation. It was some comfort they'd be with him, in a sense, the whole time. But still, suddenly, the fact he'd be facing Thundercracker, alone, and to interface with him, seemed very, very real. And not a little uncomfortable. Starscream felt his discomfort, and bent, briefly, to press his mouth to Barricade's crest. It was somehow, and Barricade couldn't exactly figure out how, not patronizing. Just…comforting. How had he ever disliked Starscream?

The brig door opened before them, and Barricade tucked himself in Starscream's shadow as they approached. Starscream said he'd explained it to Thundercracker, and Thundercracker surely must know what this meant. Still, he wanted to be the first to get optics on Thundercracker. See him before he realized he was being seen. He would do this, gladly, willingly. Would suffer anything for Skywarp. Including this. That didn't mean he'd let Thundercracker get away with anything. He'd had enough of disrespect. Enough contempt. He didn't expect gratitude from the blue jet, but he did expect some dignity.

Despite, you know, the strained circumstances, their mutual dislike and a decided lack of ambiance in the brig's holding cell.

Starscream led the way to the barrier, stooping to key the code into its controlbox. Over his shoulders, Barricade saw Thundercracker, on edge, perched on the rim of the berth, long talons wrapping around the metal as if trying to hold on.

"Starscream," Thundercracker said, pointedly…refusing to acknowledge Barricade's presence. The smaller mech felt the red optics light on him, and drift away, uncomfortable.

"Thundercracker," Starscream said, straightening up. "You have met," he said, wryly, "Barricade."

The optics flicked down to Barricade again. "We've met." His mouthplates trembled on the verge of saying more, but he thought better of it. "Let's just get this over with."

"Really looking forward to it, too, you know," Barricade muttered.

"Thundercracker," Starscream chided. "We are doing this to save your life."

"Yes. Fine. Whatever." Oh this was just going over fantastically, Barricade thought.

"Not doing it for you," Barricade said. "For Skywarp."

"I'm certainly not doing this for your sake, grounder. Especially not after what I saw you do to him." A jerk of the chin at Starscream.

"I ordered him to comply," Starscream said. "He was merely obeying me. I was the one at fault." No more than truth, but Barricade could feel the bronze jet pulling the blame down onto himself. Trying to take any rancor away from Barricade. Barricade tightened, waiting for Thundercracker's retort.

"He could have disobeyed."

"A direct order. From a superior. From a Seeker." Starscream's tension rang through Barricade's bond. Starscream hated arguing. Hated defying.

Thundercracker broke the gaze, grimacing. "Fine. Leave us to do this."

"You shall manage?"

"We'll be fine." Thundercracker frowned, drawing away as Barricade entered the barrier. Starscream sighed, but re-erected the barrier wall, and with one last worried look—at both of them—he left them alone.

Thundercracker looked down the entire difference of their heights, stretching his legs upright to increase the gap. "I'll never like you, grounder."

"Supposed to care? Not doing this for you." Barricade tried to hide his nerves. He could feel Starscream and Skywarp with him, soothing, comforting. He didn't want his worry to spread and ruin things.

Thundercracker edged around Barricade, examining him, as if looking for a weakness. The size issue suddenly became significant to Thundercracker—Barricade could practically hear him imagining possibilities, and disliking each. "I have to spike you," Thundercracker said, finally.

"Yes." He didn't know why Thundercracker looked so slagging unhappy about it. Stupid size.

"I suppose," Thundercracker sighed, aggrieved, "it is better than the alternative."

"They both suck," Barricade snapped. He would do this—for Skywarp—but there was only so much he could take. "Can we get on with it?"

They fumbled together awkwardly for several decakliks, until Thundercracker finally decided (apparently) that the best solution was to pin Barricade against the wall, folding his own legs down. Barricade could feel concern wash back to him through the bond, Starscream and Skywarp supporting him, sustaining him. And…Skywarp laughing at the awkwardness. Barricade grumbled back, but his mood lightened. He supposed it did look pretty funny.

"Stop mocking me, grounder," Thundercracker snarled.

Thundercracker shifted, clumsily, made more self-conscious by Barricade's sudden grin, his spike digging at Barricade's pelvic plate, searching for the valve. Master of foreplay, Barricade thought, sarcastically. He felt a ripple of laughter along the bond. Barricade thought of laughing outright, but then it struck him that Thundercracker had never interfaced with anyone other than a Seeker. Possibly, he realized, never with anyone other than his Trine mates.

That seemed…kind of sad. He activated his abdominal servos, rocking his pelvic plate closer, one hand reaching to guide the spike. Thundercracker flinched as the talons wrapped around the lubricated metal, but he let Barricade guide it, grinding his mouthplates together in an expression more of discomfort than disgust. The spike seated itself.

"Spark chamber," Barricade prompted.

"Silence," Thundercracker barked. "I shall do that in my own time. I take directions from no one."

Barricade stiffened, but he heard a soft voice over his comm. /It is just his way, Barricade./Starscream said. /He is merely uncomfortable and trying to deny it./ Barricade forced himself to relax. The spike moved in his valve—more gently than he would have guessed. He'd've pegged Thundercracker for the rough, violent type.

The blue hands bracing his shoulders against the wall were rigid, radiating Thundercracker's discomfort. But, Barricade thought, like me, he's doing it. Doesn't want to, but he is. The spike pushed into him, rubbing against his nodes, sending a fairly unwelcome tingle through his systems.

/He likes having his cockpit mounting stroked,/Starscream suggested, helpfully.

/Useless trivia./ Barricade retorted. /Don't care what he likes./

/The sooner he gets off, the sooner it's over, little spike,/Skywarp said.

/What about me? Doesn't seem to care if I'm having a good time./

Over the link, Skywarp's voice grew husky. /Oh, don't worry, I'll take care of that./

/We both shall,/Starscream added.

Barricade shivered, a klik later, feeling talons trail down rib struts he did not have, unfold one wing flap he also did not have, felt a mouth hot and warm on his, that was not his. He felt his valve clench against the spike, felt Thundercracker's corresponding tremor. He picked up his rhythm. Barricade sighed, letting the swirl of desire from his bond carry him, blend with the tingle of pleasure from his valve.

/I believe he is enjoying this,/ Starscream's smirk carried over the bond. /Now, you might try Thundercracker's cockpit. It feels like this./

"Guh!" Barricade cried out, feeling a feathering touch of talons followed by the unmistakable flicking of Starscream's glossa against a part he didn't even have. His spinal cables contracted, twisting from the phantom touch. "Stop it, Starscream," he whimpered, losing track of his voc channels, "Tickles."

Thundercracker froze. "You can feel him?"

"Yeah. Can't you?"

"No." Thundercracker's face was clouded with a strange longing. "Not for a long time." He bit one of his lip plates, his chest armor retracting. Barricade felt an unexpected twinge of sympathy at the naked hesitant energy. He took his cue, retracting his own armor.

Thundercracker froze. "I wish there was another way." He tried to pitch his voice to sound disgusted, but Barricade could already feel the quivers of fear underneath, as though the chamber was seeping with long constrained energy.

"There isn't." Barricade opened his cover, feeling his gold light spill out against the Seeker's frame, the exposed chamber. Thundercracker gasped as the action opened his own in involuntary response. As natural as cool-venting.

And the melding of their bodies became secondary, an afterthought, almost insignificant to the battle of their sparks. Barricade could feel the orange light flicker and flame against his own, a powerful conflagration as the sparklights twisted and surged and roiled against each other, neither wanting to give in, to open, each resisting the intrusion of the other, or trying to, even as their bodies moved them inexorably towards each other, towards climax. Barricade caught flashes of Thundercracker—little mosaic pieces sharp edged and cutting. He saw Skywarp, younger, still bold and reckless and beautiful. He saw Starscream, earnest and arrogant. He felt Skyfire, the Seeker he had never met, but who had left such a crater in their lives when he died, each of these in flashes of crystalline intensity. He pushed, gently, toward the orange flame's heart, and felt a rage of translucent resistance that clawed at him with ghostlike talons, roaringly empty. And he pushed through into the eye of this maelstrom.

Emptiness.

Cold, aching emptiness. Loneliness. A longing for connection so powerful it exerted an inward force, like gravity. And at its core, a tight hard singularity, a heavy knot of fear. A need to be strong. A need not to collapse, to give in, to yield to loneliness, and fear and loss so powerful that it had walled itself off entirely behind a hard husk. This…was Thundercracker's core, and Barricade felt the horror and shame as Thundercracker realized Barricade was so close.

/I don't know what to do!/ Barricade sent the panic spiraling frantically through the link. The rising play of their bodies seemed far away, like the sound of distant battle.

/Relax, Barricade,/ Starscream soothed, and Barricade felt almost a swelling along the bond, a push towards him, Skywarp and Starscream joining him, enveloping him, and reaching out, blue white and purple melding with his gold, spinning out arms like the spirals of galaxies and reaching toward the hard wall, the density of fear and loneliness and longing, pulling it apart, pulling it into their combined light.

Barricade was swept along with them, pulled into the unspinning whirling mass, a star pulled into a whipping orbit around a quasar, and he saw, felt, tasted them as they sensed each other, through him, around him, in him. And he felt the icy shock as Thundercracker felt into the depths of his Trine mates, felt Skywarp's roiling rages, Starscream's abject terror of loss, and his own complicity. And he was humbled by their forgiveness. He had broken them, out of fear of breaking himself, and they forgave him. He had hurt them, thinking it was love, and they forgave him even that. The worst of what he could feel and do erupted from his own memory to haunt him like a flaming ghost. And they quelled it, quenched it, yanked its vile fangs before they could sink in.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Thundercracker sobbed, his body wracked with the agony of the constrained emotions of ages, forcing themselves to the surface, a violent eruption of the return to feeling to a body so long numb that even the slightest touch was too much. He crushed Barricade against him, the long blue arms desperate around his shoulders, the overload still echoing distantly, an afterthought, his face grinding against the firm rubber of Barricade's upper tires. He kept repeating the apology, blindly, numbly, like a chant or incantation he did not expect to work. "I'm sorry." Barricade knew the apology wasn't to him, or about him. But it didn't matter. He felt the sure strong pulse of another presence along the bond, could feel the other two, their own skills rusty from disuse and shame that they—all three of them—had let their bond fall into such disrepair, open and dance together, trusting, praying that they would remember the steps. It was beautiful in such a magnitude that Barricade had no choice, really, but to struggle to contain it.

Contain them. Their fourth. Their quaternion.

They were free.


	48. Confrontation

A/N I hope you've enjoyed reading. Teensy epilogue after this...and then a sequel. And a prequel (b/c let's face it, you want to see the Trine in the War Academy, don't you? okay maybe not. :c) And so on.

Starscream had told them to expect a spectacle. That Megatron's tastes for retribution were on a large scale, no matter how petty the slight. The entire crew of the Nemesis—save those absolutely essential to maintaining the ship in flight—had been summoned to the largest of the deployment hangars. Starscream and Skywarp, despite their greater size, were ranged at the front, doubtless deliberate, that they could get the best view of Thundercracker's deactivation, and, Barricade thought, as he fought his way through the bulk of larger mechs, not caring (for once) if he offended anyone, that Megatron might get full enjoyment of their distress.

Barricade could feel their nervous anticipation. It was a risk: they'd always known it. It might not work. It might be for nothing. He could feel a faint thought skirling through his bond, that they had put Barricade through that, possibly only to drag him through the agony of a bonded's death. Don't worry about me, he pushed through the bond. He didn't worry about himself.

He pushed himself to the front with one last elbow, shoving Sideways aside, his optics blazing, daring the courier to protest. Sideways thought better of it, and grumbled, but stepped back, ceding his spot.

Megatron swept in, followed by Soundwave, whose panels ruffled pompously in the high light of the hangar. Barricade felt a wave of hatred crash through him—his? Skywarp's? Starscream's? He couldn't tell. Possibly all of them. Megatron raked his optics across the assembled mechs, his mouth quirking with contented malevolence as he spotted Starscream and Skywarp, precisely where he'd ordered them to be. He settled himself at the far end of the hangar.

"Bring him," he said, aloud. Unnecessarily. Entirely for show—a reminder, a signal of his power. Moments later, Thundercracker entered, flanked by two smaller guards, non-aerials. Megatron was taking no chances of a Seeker suborning another flyer. Thundercracker did not enter as a mech cowed by his incipient death. Barricade felt a surge of contempt from his link with the blue jet, as he took in the ostentatious display. All to witness bringing him down, destroying the Trine. Thundercracker had refused to lower himself to giving Barricade his comm freq, but Barricade could imagine his thoughts well enough from the harsh rush of disdain.

Thundercracker settled his optics on Megatron, and Barricade felt a sudden strange push of pride. Thundercracker's arrogance, his aloofness, was a weapon in itself: Megatron shifted, riled by Thundercracker's refusal to play his role. No weeping prisoner, no shell-shocked exhaustion from a mech who has tried to sort his last cycles. Only this calm arrogance. A warrior's death. Barricade always thought that stuff was nonsense. Poetry. Mythology. But here…he began to believe.

"The crime," Megatron began, his voice booming, "for which you stand accused is a physical assault upon a ranking officer." A pause to let the charge ripple around the room. Barricade forgot that most of the mechs on the Nemesis probably had no idea what had gone on. It felt weird to be included for once. Weird to belong.

"Do you deny it?" An opportunity for Thundercracker to attempt some defense.

"I do not."

Megatron frowned, displeased. "Do you have any remorse for your actions?"

"That I did not strike harder."

Barricade felt a twinge of unease across his bond, from Starscream, soothed by Skywarp and Thundercracker. Thundercracker demanding trust, insisting that he needed this to balance himself. Barricade tried to keep his own nerves to himself, but he knew he had no control over the bond. None. He didn't have the wiring or the programming to control it. He didn't want his worry to infect the others, so he tried to shove it out of his own processor as well, focussing on what was unfolding before him. Without thinking, without feeling. Just…trusting.

It was possibly the hardest thing he had ever done.

"This is not the way to mitigate your punishment," Soundwave asserted, stepping forward. Trying to explain to Thundercracker what he was supposed to be doing. Planting himself squarely in Megatron's camp. Barricade felt a prickle of dislike: Starscream's. Yes. That he seconded, and felt a flicker of amusement from the bronze jet for the agreement. Barricade wanted to open comm freqs, but didn't dare risk breaking their concentrations, their focus, their will.

Thundercracker rotated his head in a gaze that took in the assembled crowd. "This is not the place for mitigations. This is not a trial. This is a show. To call it anything like justice is blasphemy."

Megatron's mouth moved, infuriated. Thundercracker was on edge, but strangely relaxed, as if this were familiar territory for him. As though this were his kind of battle.

"This is punishment," Megatron said. "And for your transgression, you do know the penalty is deactivation. And for your insubordination, I shall make that penalty very, very painful."

A trickle of fear, that Thundercracker himself reached to stanch through the bond. "Insubordination is a charge one brings against beings under your authority. I am not."

Megatron's scathing glare took in the guards with their shockrods, the stasis cuffs, the assembled mechs who held his authority as absolute. "Incarceration has broken you," he observed, amused.

"It was a diverting experience," Thundercracker said, matching Megatron's disdained amusement to the micron. "But I have grown rather weary of playing. As a member of a Quaterne—the only one currently in existence—I invoke the autonomy of the Quaterne. We have no peers. We have no equals. We recognize," he slowed his voice, "no authority but our own." He let the pronouncement sink in.

"Delusional," Megatron spat, but his optics showed wariness. "You have no fourth. Unless you were driven so mad you are seeing ghosts."

"We have a fourth," Starscream said. "He has bonded with us." He stepped forward, out of line, out of place. Barricade could feel the tension it took for him to take this risk. It was his idea, after all. And he felt Starscream push aside the invocation of Skyfire, as a thing too vile.

Megatron's optics flickered over the crowd, lighting on where Barricade stood. "You do not mean…."

Thundercracker tapped his foot impatiently against the deck plating. "Have your servant," he sneered at Soundwave, "verify, if you wish. We understand your limitations and that you do not understand that Seekers do not lie about such sacred things."

Soundwave stepped forward, agitated by the slight. "I shall." One of his probes whipped out, splicing sharply into Thundercracker's systems. Barricade could feel the acid burn of the nanites working in through the bond, Thundercracker's repugnance at Soundwave's intrusion. He endured it, bracing himself for it. Barricade could almost hear his thoughts—that he owed his Trine this much suffering, at least, for what he had done. For what he had knowingly, needlessly made them endure. Barricade sent a push of support through the bond, knowing Thundercracker would probably reject it, but sending it anyway. He knew all too well himself the violation that Soundwave's intrusions were. Hated it.

He felt a surprised stiffening against his push, and then a welcoming. A strange, hesitant gratitude that Barricade knew and empathized. Barricade quivered where he stood, a little shocked at the change. He'll never like me, Barricade thought. But maybe, just maybe, he can respect me.

Soundwave jerked the tentacle from its connection harshly, his face tight, unreadable. Thundercracker refused to wince, though Barricade could feel the pain lance through him. Barricade reached in, taking some of it to himself, taking the burden and the shock off of Thundercracker. The blue jet needed to be wary, alert. Barricade, ignored, off to one side, did not. Could absorb and sustain this way.

"They have," Soundwave spat, as though the words tasted vile. "They have bonded."

"And this 'law'?"

"Absolute." Skywarp stepped forward. "Since the early ages. Seeker law is involate, absolute."

"I have broken precedent before," Megatron said, breezily, but underneath, Barricade could sense the tension.

"You do not want to break this precedent," Skywarp said. "Break it, and every air frame in your forces will abandon you. Because they will not break it. Nor will they forget."

Megatron glared around the chamber, seeing restless anger stirring in the optics of his aerials. Vortex. Tailwind. Blackout. Measuring their loyalty. Measuring him.

"Respect Seeker law," Starscream said, "and we shall serve your military aims." His voice tightened at the adjective, a flat refusal of serving Megatron in any other way.

"Fine," he said. "Have your Quaterne. But do not think that I shall forget."

"Oh," Thundercracker sneered, as Starscream crossed over, and keyed the stasis cuffs open, "We hope that you remember. Always." He spun, as the cuffs dropped to the floor, ringing out freedom, and strode to the shipside door, Starscream and Skywarp trailing in his wake.

/Coming?/ Skywarp asked, over the comm. /Kind of fucking up our grand exit here./ Barricade could feel a triumphant trill of amusement over the link. They had done it. They had won.

He broke ranks, trying to keep the joy from bouncing his steps as he raced to follow. His Quaterne.


	49. Epilogue

A/N Fluffy happy epilogue. I think they deserve it after what they've been through, don't you? I hope you've enjoyed reading-thank you to everyone who has reviewed, or not! If you have any questions, please ask, and I SWEAR I'll respond (I suck at responding to reviews, but I'm trying to get better!)

Epilogue:

Barricade dropped the last box of his belongings on the floor inside their new quarters. Their. All four of them. This was going to be…weird. He squatted down, starting to stack the datatracks on a low shelf.

"Well, at least there is that," Thundercracker sniped. "He gets the low shelves."

"I told you that he had his advantages," Starscream said. He was draped, idly, on the berth, one foot propped over his knee, swinging back and forth in the air. Relaxed. Happy. "He is also quite handy when it comes to greasing for an intrasystem flight."

"No," Barricade and Thundercracker spoke in unison, froze, glared at each other.

Skywarp burst out laughing, dropping his own box of input rods from his investigation on the desk console. He'd already contacted IG, altered his orders. After this investigation, he was transferred to combat. Barricade could feel the dark thrill in Skywarp at the thought of combat, mixed with anxiety. Barricade had seen him. Barricade did not fear. "Primus, you're more alike than you want to own."

"Shut up," Thundercracker snapped, alone only because Barricade wouldn't dream of saying that to Skywarp. He dropped onto the berth next to Starscream, eyeballing Barricade warily. "Must he recharge with us?"

"Seeker law," Skywarp snickered.

"Ha ha." Thundercracker's optics narrowed. "You're only gleeful because you get to have your way."

"For once."

"For once?" Thundercracker stiffened. Starscream's foot stopped swinging up and down, the leg wrapping around the blue waist, pulling Thundercracker down on top of him, arms reaching around the blue frame.

"As gracious in defeat as in victory," Starscream teased. Thundercracker tensed, and Barricade could feel the tension through the bond, but then loosened. Not giving in, just…not wanting to fight any more. Barricade could understand that. Thundercracker shifted onto his side, pulling Starscream against him.

Barricade felt uncomfortable. Well, he also felt a ripple of desire, mutual, echoing, resonating through his systems. Only it wasn't his desire. It was Starscream's and Thundercracker's and he was just a conduit. A small, suffering, aroused conduit. And looking away didn't help, because he could still feel them, still feel everything: Starscream's long talons tracing light lines over Thundercracker's folded wing, Thundercracker's mouth cool and longing, pressing to drink a kiss from Starscream.

"Welcome to my world," Skywarp said, folding his arms around Barricade from behind, his ex-vents warm brushes of air across Barricade's upper tires.

"Didn't help much," Barricade said, softly. Regret and amazement mixed. How had this happened? How had he gotten this, this thing he could never even have imagined wanting because he was too limited to imagine it even existed?

"You kept us together," Skywarp said, the voice rumbling through Barricade's frame. "You're the only way we could feel each other." He stood up, carrying Barricade to the berth, the smaller mech squirming a protest. He hadn't finished putting his stuff away. He'd been a slob in his old quarters, and he wanted to make a fresh start. Skywarp laid him down on the berth, draping himself over Barricade. Starscream peeked over Thundercracker's shoulder.

"I do not understand how he does not feel…compressed."

"Like it," Barricade said, his voice muffled under the armor. Starscream laughed, reaching over to stroke at Skywarp's shoulder armor. Thundercracker rolled onto his back, pushed by his bronze quaternion.

"It does," Starscream observed, "leave this entire back unprotected, does it not, Thundercracker?"

Thundercracker smirked. Barricade couldn't see either of them—their bodies blocked by the beloved black mass of Skywarp's chassis—but he could feel them, hear them, sense them as they turned their desire onto Skywarp, feel Skywarp's arousal flare in return. He groaned, swimming in a sea of desire, helpless. Skywarp lifted himself off, lowering down to a hungry kiss that sent the arousal spinning like wildfire across Barricade's sensor net, their combined desires teetering him on the brink of overload.

"We shall have to, at some point, get him a modification and protocol to control the links," Starscream said.

"We could do other mods as well," Thundercracker speculated, "Air frame. He could adapt." Barricade could faintly figure Thundercracker's thoughts: It would be less embarrassing, invite fewer questions, if they were all, at least, flyers. And he would be able to fly.

"No," Skywarp said. "I like him like this." He nipped one of the tires as proof.

"Skywarp, when will you learn to stop making his decisions for him? He is fully competent to decide on his own."

"And your decisions are notoriously poor," Thundercracker added, darkly.

Skywarp frowned. It had the advantage of damping the lust that was crashing like a wild torrent across Barricade's systems, but…Barricade didn't want Skywarp unhappy. He'd give everything for the black jet's happiness. "Don't want to. This is who I am." How Skywarp loves me. What he wants. Good enough. That's all I want to be. He felt a hot surge of love from Skywarp, that spilled through his link over to the other two.

Thundercracker winced. "But yes, at the very least he needs control protocols."

"I kind of like it," Skywarp growled, softly. "Can't lie to each other. Can't hide anything." There'd been too much of that, for too long.

"All I'm saying," Thundercracker said, "is that I wish it didn't have to be through…him." Barricade grinned. Wow, Thundercracker wasn't kidding. He'd never like Barricade. Barricade let some of his amusement seep through the link. The blue jet narrowed his optics in mute retort.

"Once again," Starscream sighed, aggrieved, "it becomes up to me to have the solution."

Barricade felt Skywarp struggle with a protest, but caught some of Barricade's amusement and backed down, ducking down to kiss him. "Let's hear this masterful plan," Skywarp goaded.

"Reopen our own bonds. Rebond if necessary. Start over." He stroked his hands down Thundercracker's chassis, circling the armor over the spark chamber.

Thundercracker hesitated, a frisson of shy fear running cold through the bond. "Yes?" he breathed. Knowing he could not erase the past, undo it, but wanting so desperately to move beyond what it had done, what he had done, what had been done to all of them. Moving beyond their loss.

And Barricade was no Skyfire: he'd never measure up. Not all the modifications in the world would ever make him fill that gaping need in them. But he was Barricade, and he was with them, and…it was enough.


End file.
